s  m 


PHY 



DERLY  WOMAN 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  AN 
ELDERLY  WOMAN 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OP 
AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


Aa  soon  as  you  feel  too  old  to  do  a  thing, 
do  it."  —  Margaret  Deland. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,   IQII,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFUN  COMPANY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  September  IQII 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  SHADOW  OF  AGE 
II.  MY  MOTHER'S  HOUSE        .. 

III.  THE  CONVENTIONS  OF  AGE  . 

IV.  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  MEDICINE       . 

V.  THE  COMPENSATIONS  OF  AGE        .           .  .99 

VI.  THE  SPENDING  OF  TIME  ....  H3 

VII.  THE  LAND  OF  OLD  AGE          •          «           •  -130 

VIII.  GRANDMOTHERS  AND  GRANDCHILDREN  .  151 

IX.  YOUNG  PEOPLE  AND  OLD      .           »          »  .  175 

X.  UNSPOKEN  WORDS  .          •          .          *          .  199 

XI.  THE  ISOLATED  GENERATION           .           .  .219 

XH.  LENGTHENING  SHADOWS           •          .          •  237 

XIII.  GROWING  OLD  GRACEFULLY          .          .  .253 


786713 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  AN 
ELDERLY  WOMAN. 


CHAPTEE  I 

THE   SHADOW   OF  AGE 

As  I  look  back  over  my  life,  it  divides 
itself  into  four  parts.  First  come  all  the 
years  before  I  married,  and  as  I  look 
back  on  my  childhood  and  my  short 
girlhood,  it  seems  to  me  as  though  I 
were  remembering  the  life  of  some  other 
woman,  for  during  these  many  years  I 
know  that  I  have  changed  several  times 
from  one  person  to  another,  and  the 
world  about  me  has  had  time  to  change 
also.  All  that  early  part  swims  in  a  fog, 
with  here  and  there  events  popping  out 
of  the  mist,  more  distinct  than  those 
a  week  past,  —  often  meaningless  and 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


trivial  events  these;  I  cannot  tell  by 
what  caprice  memory  has  elected  to 
keep  them  so  clear.  Lately  I  find  my 
self  returning  to  certain  opinions  and 
prejudices  of  my  girlhood,  that  I  had 
long  forgotten.  Time,  after  all,  has  not 
obliterated  them,  nor  have  I  walked 
away  from  them.  It  is  rather  as  though 
I  had  gone  in  a  circle,  and  as  I  come 
to  the  completion  of  it  I  find  my  old 
thoughts  and  opinions,  changed  and 
grown  older,  waiting  for  me. 

With  my  marriage  begins  the  part 
of  my  life  that  seems  real  to  me,  —  it 
is  as  if  I  had  dreamed  all  that  went  be 
fore.  I  loved  the  time  when  my  chil 
dren  were  little,  and  I  have  often  wished 
that  I  could  put  them  and  myself  back 
in  the  nursery  again.  I  pity  the  women 
whose  children  come  too  late  for  them 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


all  to  be  in  some  sense  children  to 
gether.  But  however  young  a  mother 
is,  there  is  a  great  gap  between  her 
and  her  babies.  My  little  children  were 
of  a  different  generation  from  me.  And 
for  all  our  striving  to  understand,  they 
were  babies  and  my  husband  and  I 
"  grown  people,"  though  as  I  look  back 
we  seem  mere  boy  and  girl. 

We  worried  over  our  babies,  —  there 
were  four  of  them,  all  in  the  nursery 
at  the  same  time,  —  we  sat  up  nights 
gravely  discussing  their  "  tendencies," 
and  their  education  —  only  to  find  that 
the  very  tendencies  over  which  we 
worried  most  they  outgrew,  and  that 
when  the  time  for  education  began  in 
earnest,  all  the  conditions  had  changed 
and  new  methods  had  been  evolved. 

It  will  always  be  this  way,  —  mothers 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


and  fathers  will  always  sit  up  late  nights, 
as  we  did,  discussing  the  "  futures"  of 
their  little  two-year-old  sons. 

We  tried  so  hard  to  do  right  ;  we 
thought  back  through  the  years  and 
said:  — 

"  I  felt  this  and  this  when  I  was  little. 
I  thought  this  way  and  this  — such  and 
such  things  frightened  me.  My  father 
seemed  unjust  when  he  punished  me 
for  this  offense ;  my  mother  made  such 
and  such  mistakes.  I  will  not  make 
these  mistakes  with  my  children." 

And  so,  thinking  to  avoid  all  the 
mistakes  of  our  own  parents,  we  made, 
all  unknowing,  fresh  mistakes  of  our 
own. 

When  I  was  little,  for  instance,  I  was 
very  much  afraid  of  the  dark;  so  much 
so  that  the  fears  of  my  childhood 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


haunted  my  whole  life,  —  an  unlighted 
staircase  has  terrors  for  me  even  to 
this  day.  And  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
no  child  of  mine  should  suffer  from 
fear  of  darkness  as  I  did.  So  my  first 
child  had  a  light  in  his  room.  He  was 
always  naughty  about  going  to  bed, 
and  he  grew  to  be  a  big  boy  before  I 
found  out  that  this  was  because  the 
gray  twilight  of  the  room  was  horrible 
to  him,  and  that  he  was  very  much 
afraid  of  the  uncertain  shapes  of  the 
furniture  he  saw  in  the  dim  light  of 
the  lamp,  though  not  at  all  afraid  of 
the  dark.  It  is  with  such  well-inten 
tioned  blunders  that  one  brings  up  one's 
children. 

Grandmothers  know  that  this  is  so, 
and  for   that  reason   all  the  various 

"systems"  seem  like  foolish  words  to 
5 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OP 


them.  They  have  learned  that  there 
will  be  mistakes  made  where  there  are 
parents  and  children,  —  yes,  and  that 
there  will  be  cruelties  and  injustices, 
and  that  the  only  way  to  deal  with  very 
little  children  is  to  love  them  very 
much  and  let  them  feel  this  love. 

The  time  my  children  took  in  growing 
up  seems  to  me  phenomenally  short;  one 
day  they  were  babies  and  the  next  they 
were  young  people  to  be  reckoned  with, 
having  wills  and  personalities  of  their 
own.  Other  mothers  tell  me  that  their 
children  grew  up  as  quickly,  but  this  I 
have  hard  work  to  believe. 

When  my  oldest  son  was  nearly  a 
man  and  the  others  crowding  on  his 
heels,  my  dear  husband  died,  and  my  son 
grew  up  overnight,  and  in  the  next  few 
years  —  years  that  were  very  full  ones, 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


for  all  their  sadness  —  my  other  chil 
dren  stole  a  march  on  me  and  grew  up 
too;  almost,  I  might  say,  behind  my 
back.  While  I  was  taking  on  myself 
the  new  responsibilities  of  my  so  altered 
life,  and  while  the  world  seemed  yet 
very  empty  of  companionship,  I  found 
that  my  children  were  becoming  my 
comrades,  and  so  I  entered  on  the  third 
quarter  of  my  life. 

My  boys  and  girls  all  at  once  be 
longed  to  my  generation ;  we  had  com 
mon  interests,  common  tastes  and 
amusements  —  for  all  practical  purposes 
we  were  the  same  age.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  the  warning  voice  sounded  in  my 
ear,  but  I  seemed  to  myself  almost  as 
young  as  my  children,  so  no  wonder  I 
did  n't  recognize  it  as  the  voice  of  age 

calling  to  me.  It  is  a  very  pleasant  time 
7 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


when  one  is  still  on  the  great  stage  of 
life,  playing  one's  small  part  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  one's  children  ;  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  too,  with  people  a  score  of 
years  one's  senior.  This  is  the  golden 
moment  when  time  holds  its  breath  for 
a  while  and  one  imagines  that,  however 
old  one  may  get,  one  will  forever  stay 
in  spirit  at  the  same  smiling  "  middle 
way."  Age,  considered  at  that  time, 
seems  rather  the  result  of  some  accident 
or  some  weakness  of  will  than  the  result 
of  living  a  great  number  of  years  in  the 
world.  So  for  many  years  my  children 
and  I  did  our  work  side  by  side,  I  help 
ing  and  advising  them,  they  aiding  and 
advising  me  in  the  common  partnership 
of  our  lives. 

The  fourth  part  of  my  life,  my  pre 
sent  life  about   which  I  am  going  to 
8 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


write,  began  when  again  I  became  of  a 
different  generation  from  my  children 
—  with  the  difference  that  they  now 
are  the  strong,  I  the  weak  ;  that  they 
treasure  me  and  care  for  me,  worry 
over  me  and  weep  over  me,  —  a  spry 
old  lady,  and,  I  am  afraid,  sometimes 
a  defiant  old  lady,  impatient  of  the  rules 
which  they  lay  down  for  me,  as  once 
they  were  of  the  rules  that  I  made  for 
them. 

How  did  this  come  about?  When 
did  it  happen  ? 

There  was  a  time  when  I  was  more 
of  a  comrade  than  a  mother  to  my 
daughters  ;  when  I  was  the  adviser  of 
my  sons.  Now  I  am  not.  I  do  not  know 
when  the  change  came,  nor  do  they,  if 
indeed  they  realize  it  at  all.  There  was 

a  time  when  I  was  of  their  generation, 
9 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


now  I  am  not.  I  cannot  put  my  finger 
on  the  time  when  old  age  finally  claimed 
me.  But  there  came  a  moment  when 
my  boys  were  more  thoughtful  of  me, 
when  they  did  n't  come  to  me  any  more 
with  their  perplexities,  not  because  I 
had  what  is  called  "  failed,"  but  because 
they  felt  that  the  time  had  come  when 
I  ought  to  be  "  spared  "  every  possible 
worry.  So  there  is  a  conspiracy  of  si 
lence  against  me  in  my  household.  "  We 
must  n't  worry  mother  "  is  the  watch 
word  of  my  dear  children,  and  the  re 
sult  of  their  great  care  is  that  I  am  on 
the  outside  of  their  lives. 

Shadows  come  and  go  among  them  ; 
they  talk  about  them  ;  I  feel  the  chill 
of  their  trouble,  but  I'm  never  told 
what  it 's  about.  Before  me  they  keep 

cheerful ;  when  I   come,  the   shadow 
10 


AN  ELDERLY   WOMAN 


passes  from  their  faces  and  they  talk 
with  me  about  all  the  things  that  they 
think  will  interest  me.  I  move  in  a  little 
artificial,  smiling  world  away  from  all 
the  big  interests  of  life.  If  one  of  them 
is  sick  away  from  home,  I  am  not  told 
until  it  is  all  over  ;  if  there  is  any  crisis 
among  them,  they  do  all  they  can  to 
keep  me  from  hearing  of  it.  But  in  the 
end  I  always  do  know,  for  no  one  can 
live  in  the  shadow  of  any  anxiety  and 
not  be  aware  of  it. 

So  the  great  silence  enfolds  me  more 
and  more.  I  live  more  alone  and  soli 
tary  among  those  I  love,  groping  in  the 
silence,  watching  the  faces  of  my  chil 
dren  to  find  what  is  passing  in  their 
lives.  I  often  think  how  sweet  it  would 
have  been  if  my  husband  had  lived,  and 
we  could  have  grown  old  together, 
11 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


understanding  and  giving  companion 
ship  to  each  other. 

I  can  remember  the  very  day  when 
I  realized  that  age  had  claimed  me  at 
last.  There  is  a  great  difference  between 
being  a  thing  and  realizing  it.  A  woman 
may  say  a  hundred  times  that  she  is 
ugly  ;  she  may  be  ugly  ;  but  unless  she 
realizes  that  she  is  ugly,  it  will  make 
very  little  difference.  It  is  the  conscious 
ness  of  our  defects  which  undoes  us,  — 
and  so  with  age. 

This  great  readjustment  began  with 
the  most  trivial  of  events.  I  happened 
to  see  a  little  dust  on  the  table  and 
around  on  the  bric-a-brac  —  it  seems  to 
me  that  dusting  is  a  lost  art  —  and  I 
was  just  wiping  it  off.  I  was  enjoying 
myself,  for  I  belong  to  a  generation 

which   was  taught  to   work  with   its 
12 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


hands  and  to  delight  in  doing  its  work 
nicely,  when  I  heard  Margaret's  step 
on  the  stairs ;  she  is  my  youngest 
daughter,  home  on  a  visit.  My  first 
impulse  was  to  sit  down  and  pretend 
to  be  reading,  but  I  resolved  to  bra 
zen  it  out,  —  after  all,  there  is  no  rea 
son  why  I  shouldn't  dust  my  own 
bric-a-brac  in  my  own  home  if  I 
choose. 

She  came  into  the  parlor. 

"  What  are  you  doing,  darling  ?  "  she 
said. 

"  I  am  dusting  the  vases  on  the  man 
tel,"  I  answered,  and  I  tried  to  keep 
any  note  of  guilt  from  my  voice. 

"Why  couldn't  you  have  called 
Annie?"  she  asked  me,  with  tender 
reproach. 

"  I  like  to  stir  around  myself  some- 
13 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


times,"  I  said,  and  for  the  life  of  me 
I  couldn't  help  being  a  little  defiant. 

"Well,  then,  why  couldn't  you  let 
me  do  it  ?  You  might  have  called  me," 
she  went  on  in  the  same  tone. 

"I  told  you  I  like  to  do  it." 

"It  isn't  good  for  you  to  stand 'on 
your  feet  so  much.  Give  me  that  dus 
ter,  mother.  You'll  tire  yourself  all 
out." 

"  I  get  tired  sitting"  I  broke  out. 

"  I  always  have  said  that  you  ought 
to  take  more  exercise  in  the  open  air." 
By  this  time  she  had  taken  away  my 
duster.  "Why  don't  you  go  out  and 
take  a  little  walk?  Come  —  I  '11  go  with 
you." 

Presently  she  had  finished  dusting, 
but  I  saw  ever  so  many  little  places  that 

I  should  have  to  wipe  up  later  on,  fur* 
14 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


lively.  I  should  have  enjoyed  finishing 
that  dusting  myself. 

"I'll  run  up  and  get  your  things," 
said  Margaret. 

Now,  I  cannot  abide  having  any  one 
trifle  with  my  bureau  drawers,  and  it 
is  n't  because  I  'm  old  enough  to  have 
middle-aged  sons  and  daughters,  either. 
Ever  since  I  can  remember,  I  have  put 
my  things  away  myself.  I  keep  my 
bonnets  in  the  little  drawers  and  my 
gloves  and  veils — my  everyday  ones, 
that  is  —  beside  them ;  and  I  know  that 
I  shall  never  be  able  to  find  anything 
again  once  Margaret  has  been  among 
them.  Besides  that,  I  do  not  like  going 
to  walk.  Walking  aimlessly  for  exer 
cise  has  always  seemed  most  futile  to 
me;  a  feeble  stroll  that  has  no  objec 
tive  point,  not  even  the  post  office,  an- 
15 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


noys  me  more  than  any  other  way  of 
spending  my  time.  I  have  never  walked 
except  when  I  had  something  to  walk 
for,  and  I  don't  intend  to  begin  at  my 
time  of  life. 

"I  don't  think  I'll  go  to  walk,  dear. 
I'm  going  out  this  afternoon — " 

Now,  though  I  said  this  indifferently 
enough,  in  a  tone  which  didn't  invite 
discussion,  yet  I  braced  myself  in 
wardly;  I  knew  what  was  coming. 

"  Oh,  mother  darling,"  my  daughter 
cried.  "  You  're  not  going  to  that  lec 
ture,  with  your  cold,  in  that  drafty 
hall !  And  you  always  catch  more  cold 
in  a  crowd!  You  won't  go,  will  you? " 

"  Well,  well  —  "I  temporized. 

"  You  won't  go  —  promise." 

Then  the  door-bell  rang,  and  I  made 

my  escape  to  my  own  room  and  locked 
16 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


my  door  after  me.  I  knew  well  enough 
what  would  happen,  —  how  Margaret 
would  tell  the  others  at  dinner  that  I 
was  going  out,  and  how  they  would 
protest.  And  I  made  up  my  mind,  as  I 
often  have  before,  that  since  I  am  old 
enough  to  know  what  is  best  for  me,  I 
would  go  to  that  lecture,  let  them  talk 
as  they  might;  so  I  got  ready  for  the 
battle,  resolving  for  the  hundredth 
time  that  I  would  not  be  run  by  my 
children. 

As  I  sat  in  my  room  plotting  —  yes, 
plotting  —  how  I  should  outwit  my 
daughter,  it  came  over  me  what  a 
funny  thing  it  was  that  I  should  be 
contriving  to  get  my  own  way,  for 
all  the  world  like  a  naughty,  elderly 
child,  while  my  daughter  was  worry 
ing  about  my  headstrong  ways  as  if 
17 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


she  were  my  mother  instead  of  my  be 
ing  hers. 

How  increasingly  often  I  hear  as  the 
years  go  on,  not  only  from  my  own 
children,  but  from  other  people  whose 
mothers  are  already  old :  "  Mother  will 
not  take  care  of  herself ! "  And  then 
follow  fearsome  stories  of  mother's 
latest  escapade, —  just  as  one  tells  how 
naughty  Johnnie  is  getting  and  how 
Susie  kicks  her  bedclothes  off,  —  stories 
of  how  mother  made  a  raid  on  the  attic 
and  cleaned  it  almost  single-handed 
when  all  the  family  were  away;  stories 
of  clandestine  descents  into  the  perilous 
depths  of  the  cellar;  hair-raising  tales 
of  how  mother  was  found  on  a  step- 
ladder  hanging  a  window  curtain ; 
how  mother  insisted  on  putting  down 

the  preserves  and  pickles,  —  rows  and 

18 


AN  ELDERLY   WOMAN 


rows  and  rows  of  shining  glasses  of 
them,  —  herself,  and  how  tired  she  was 
afterwards,  as  if  putting  down  the  pre 
serves  tired  only  women  who  were  past 
middle  age.  And  a  certain  indignation 
rose  within  me  as  I  remembered  that 
I  can  visit  my  own  attic  and  my  own 
cellar  only  by  stealth  or  with  a  devoted 
and  tyrannical  child  of  mine  standing 
over  me  to  see  that  I  don't  "  overdo." 
For  the  motto  of  all  devoted  sons  and 
daughters  is:  "Nag  mother  to  death, 
if  necessary,  but  don't  let  her  overdo." 
Well,  what  if  I  should  overdo  ?  Be 
fore  one  is  old,  one  is  allowed  to  shorten 
one's  life  unchecked;  one  may  have 
orgies  of  work  undisturbed.  And  I,  for 
one,  would  far  rather  shorten  my  life 
by  overdoing  than  have  it  lengthened 

out  by  a  series  of  mournful,  inactive 
19 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


years.  Again  I  said  I  would  not  be  run 
by  my  children.  And  as  I  got  to  this 
point  in  my  meditation  I  heard  my  son 
Dudley  coming  up  the  stairs.  I  knew 
he  would  come  to  see  me,  so  I  unlocked 
my  door. 

I  had  said  that  I  would  not  be  run 
by  my  children.  Now  see  to  what  depths 
constant  nagging  reduces  a  naturally 
straightforward  woman.  I  know  that 
Dudley  watches  me  very  closely,  and  I 
often  wish  he  would  sometimes  ignore 
my  moods  as  I  do  his;  but  this  time  I 
was  ready  for  him,  pulling  a  long  face 
when  he  came  in. 

He  said  atonce — I  knew  he  would:  — 

"You  look  blue,  old  girl." 

"  I  never,"  I  burst  out,  "  can  do  the 
least  thing  without  you  children  inter 
fering.  I  can't  read  all  the  time,  you 
20 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


know;  but  whenever  I  propose  to  do 
anything,  I  meet  with  such  opposition 
that  for  the  sake  of  peace  I  give  up  at 


once." 


I  spoke  more  warmly  than  I  felt  as 
far  as  this  particular  instance  was  con 
cerned,  for  I  was  fighting  for  a  princi 
ple. 

"  Who 's  been  bothering  you?  "  Dud 
ley  demanded. 

"It  isn't  < bothered'  I've  been,"  I 
remonstrated.  "It's  that  you  children 
are  needlessly  anxious  about  me.  It's 
far  better  for  me  to  go  out  now  and 
then  than  to  sit  in  the  house  from  morn 
ing  till  night.  And  what's  more,"  I 
added  determinedly,  "I  am  going  to 
the  lecture  this  afternoon  no  matter 
what  Margaret  or  any  one  else  says!" 

Dudley  laughed. 
21 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"  There,  there,"  he  said,  patting  my 
hand.  "You  shall  go;  no  one  is  going 
to  oppose  you.  You  '11  go  if  I  have  to 
take  you  there  in  a  carriage  myself." 

So  I  knew  I  had  won  the  day,  foi 
in  our  family  Dudley  is  the  important 
member.  But  I  made  up  my  mind,  just 
the  same,  that  I  would  go  on  my  own 
two  feet  to  that  lecture,  for  there  was 
no  need  at  all  of  a  carriage.  And  I  did 
go,  alone  and  walking,  though  I  slipped 
out  of  the  front  door  so  quietly  that 
it  was  hardly  dignified,  —  "  sneaked," 
was  what  Margaret  called  it. 

As  Dudley  went  down  the  hall,  I 
thought  how  a  similar  warfare  is  being 
carried  on  all  over  this  country  to-day, 
wherever  there  are  elderly  mothers  and 
middle-aged  sons  and  daughters,  —  the 

children  trying  to  dominate  their  par- 
22 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ents  with  the  end  in  view  of  making 
them  take  abnormal  care  of  their  health, 
and  the  older  people  fighting  ever  more 
feebly  and  petulantly  for  their  lost  in 
dependence.  Not  only  struggling  to 
have  their  own  way,  not  only  chafing 
at  the  leading-strings  in  which  their 
watchful,  devoted  children  would  keep 
them,  but  fighting,  too,  for  the  little 
glimmer  of  youth  that  is  yet  left  them. 
For  all  this  care  by  one's  children 
means  but  one  thing,  and  that  is  — 
age.  While  you  slept,  old  age  came 
upon  you.  You  count  the  number  of 
your  years  by  the  way  your  daughter 
watches  your  steps,  and  you  see  your 
infirmities  in  your  son's  anxious  eyes; 
and  the  reason  of  all  this  struggle  — 
why  our  own  attics  and  cellars  are  for 
bidden  ground  to  us ;  why  our  daugh- 
23 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


ters  take  our  dusters  from  us  and  ten 
derly  nag  us  —  is  that  they  are  valiantly, 
if  tactlessly,  striving  to  delay  by  their 
care  the  hour  which  they  know  must 
come,  while  we  try  to  ignore  its  ap 
proach. 

We  like  to  kill  the  days,  which  some 
times  crawl  past  us  so  slowly,  with 
an  illusion  of  activity,  and  we  do  not 
like  to  be  reminded  day  by  day,  hour 
by  hour,  that  we  are  old,  that  there 
is  no  work  we  need  do,  no  "  ought " 
calling  us  any  more;  that  our  work 
in  the  world  is  being  done  by  other 
people  and  our  long  vacation  has  al 
ready  begun. 

As  I  sat  alone  that  evening  and  so 
berly  went  over  the  events  of  the  day, 
I  clearly  realized  the  meaning  of  Mar 
garet's  taking  away  my  duster.  I  real- 
24 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ized  that  there  was  no  work  in  the 
world  that  I  ought  to  do  but  take  care 
of  myself.  I  realized  that  I  was  old, 
and  from  that  day,  though  I  often  for 
get  it,  the  world  has  looked  a  little  dif 
ferent  to  me;  my  point  of  view  has,  in 
some  subtle  way,  shifted.  It  was  on 
that  day  that  I  sat  down  to  think  how 
it  was  that  I  had  come  to  be  old  and 
what  the  invisible  milestones  were  that 
I  had  passed  along  the  way. 

The  first  time  age  touched  me  it  was 
with  so  light  a  finger  that  I  did  not  rec 
ognize  the  touch ;  I  did  n't  know  what 
had  happened.  Indeed,  the  touch  of  age 
at  first  irritated  me;  then  I  laughed  at 
it,  and  finally  I  became  a  little  bewildered, 
realizing  confusedly  that  a  new  ele 
ment  had  come  into  my  life  to  stay.  But 

I  did  not  know  that  it  was  the  shadow 
25 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


of  age  which  was  upon  me,  that  it  was 
always  there,  invisible,  quiet,  persistent, 
and,  patient  as  death,  waiting  to  claim 
me. 

This  first  touch  of  age  comes  when 
our  children  begin  to  dictate  to  us. 

The  other  day  I  saw  the  youth  of  a 
woman  begin  to  wither  under  my  very 
eyes.  She  did  n't  know  what  was  hap 
pening,  but  I  knew  what  shadow  was 
over  her.  To  me  she  seems  young,  for  I 
have  seen  her  grow  up,  and  though  she 
has  big  daughters,  I  never  thought  of  her 
as  approaching  middle  age  until  the  last 
time  she  and  the  girls  came  to  see  me. 

Edith  is  a  big,  handsome,  buoyant 
woman,  but  there  was  a  subdued  air 
about  her  for  which  I  could  n't  account 
until  her  eldest  daughter  said  sweetly, 

but  with  decision  :  — 
26 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"  Mother  is  n't  looking  well ;  she  ought 
to  have  some  sea  air." 

And  Edith  replied  with  the  note  of 
helpless  irritation  that  I  have  come  to 
know  so  well  :  — 

"I  have  told  the  children  so  often 
that  I  dislike  leaving  my  comfortable 
home  in  the  summer." 

Then  I  knew  why  Edith  seemed 
changed  :  her  children  had  begun  to 
run  her. 

So  the  finger  of  age  touches  all  of  us 
in  much  the  same  fashion.  The  warn 
ing  may  not  always  come  through  some 
dear  child,  though  with  mothers  it  is 
oftenest  in  that  way ;  but  the  voice  of 
the  valiant  new  generation  speaks  in 
one  way  or  another  to  every  man  and 
woman,  and  from  the  moment  you  have 

heard  that  voice  you  have  set  your  face 
27 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


old-agewards,  though  twenty  years  or 
more  may  pass  before  you  are  really 
old.  The  strong  new  generation,  eager 
and  clamorous,  is  at  your  heels  ready 
to  take  your  place,  anxious  to  perform 
your  tasks.  Already  your  children  are 
altering  the  world  that  you  know  ; 
already  they  are  meditating  the  changes 
that  they  will  make  when  the  reins  of 
power  fall  into  their  hands  ;  and  one 
day  you  will  wake  up  in  a  new  world, 
an  unhomelike  place  to  which  you  must 
adjust  yourself  as  a  baby  must  adjust 
himself  to  his  surroundings,  but  with 
the  difference  that  every  day  the  baby 
makes  progress,  whereas  every  day  you 
will  find  the  new  conditions  harder  to 
understand,  —  as  I  have,  and  as  your 
mother  has. 

After  my  husband's  death  I  was  very 
28 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


anxious  to  have  my  own  mother  make 
her  home  with  me,  and  at  the  time  I 
could  n't  understand  why  she  would  n't. 
Now  I  know.  She  lived  instead  in  a  little 
house  in  the  town  where  she  had  spent 
her  life,  and  for  all  companionship  she 
had  a  "  girl "  nearly  as  old  as  herself. 
We  used  to  worry  about  her  a  great 
deal,  about  her  loneliness,  her  lack  of 
care  of  herself,  —  all  the  things  that  my 
children  worry  about  now  ;  but  she 
met  all  our  pleading  to  live  with  us 
with  the  baffling  smile,  and  the  "Well, 
well,  we  '11  see,"  that  she  had  used  with 
us  when  we  were  little  children. 

One  time  I  accompanied  her  home 
after  a  visit  she  had  made  us,  in  spite 
of  her  protests  that  it  was  ridiculous 
for  me  to  do  so.  It  had  stormed  and  the 

roads  were  bad,  and  I  was  afraid  to  let 
29 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


her  travel  alone.  She  strode  ahead  of 
me,  straight  as  a  pine  tree,  up  the  brick 
path  which  led  to  her  house,  and  opened 
the  front  door.  The  gesture  of  welcome 
she  gave  her  lonely  little  home,  and  the 
long  breath  she  drew,  as  of  relief,  I 
didn't  then  understand,  though  I  al 
ways  remembered  them.  I  understand 
now.  She  had  come  back  to  herself,  to 
her  own  life,  to  her  memories.  Here  she 
could  think  her  own  thoughts  and  lead 
her  life  as  she  wished.  She  could  even 
sit  in  a  draft  without  an  affection 
ately  officious  child  following  her  up 
with  a  shawl,  and  her  little  home,  lonely 
as  it  was,  was  less  lonely  than  the  strange 
world  we  lived  in.  I  have  often  taken 
the  duster  from  my  mother's  hands  as 
Margaret  did  from  mine  the  other  morn 
ing.  And  I  suppose  the  same  little 
30 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


drama  will  be  enacted  in  every  family 
until  the  end  of  time  by  mothers  and 
daughters. 


CHAPTBK  II 

MY  MOTHER'S  HOUSE 

As  my  years  crowd  upon  me,  I  read 
the  meaning  of  certain  things  in  the 
past  that  as  a  young  woman  I  never 
understood,  for  there  is  nothing  more 
variable  than  our  past.  Young  people 
regard  the  happenings  of  yesterday  as 
a  fixed  quantity,  but  the  past  is  just 
as  insecure  as  the  future,  for  all  events 
have  meaning  and  gather  value  only 
according  to  the  personality  they  visit. 
This  being  so,  as  time  changes,  the  tra 
gedy  of  yesterday  softens  and  smiles  at 
one.  The  small  and  meaningless  event, 
in  the  light  of  those  which  follow  it, 
grows  and  grows  until  it  overshadows 

all. 

32 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


The  boundaries  that  fix  life  itself  — 
birth  and  death — are  perhaps  the  only 
events  that  keep  their  primary  impor 
tance  with  us  as  we  age.  Mysterious  is 
the  past  and  strange  and  fortuitous.  It 
veils  its  face  like  the  future.  We  can 
not  remember  what  we  will ;  we  forget 
the  very  things  that  we  have  loved  and 
felt  and  suffered.  The  memory  of  the 
emotions  passes  from  us,  and  it  is  as 
if  they  had  never  been.  Why  should  I 
keep  this  trivial  memory  and  discard 
the  other  ?  Who  can  tell  me  ?  I  know 
that  this  and  that,  when  I  was  a  girl, 
made  my  heart  beat ;  this  I  remember, 
but  not  with  my  emotions.  Why  it  beat 
is  now  mysterious  to  me. 

As  I  grow  old  I  find  myself  in  a 
thousand  looks  and  gestures  of  my 

mother,  the  memories  of  which  come 
33 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


crowding  to  me  out  of  the  past.  We 
go  down  to  the  grave  as  egotists  ;  so 
it  is  the  mother  of  her  later  years 
who  now  returns  to  me  as  I  tread  over 
the  path  she  trod. 

Especially  significant  is  her  house,  — 
the  little  place  so  liberally  fenced  in  and 
not  thrown  into  the  next  place  in  the 
modern  and  odious  fashion.  Up  the  side 
of  the  brick  path  were  posy  beds,  —  for 
that  is  the  true  name  for  such  a  garden, 
—  and  posy  beds  there  were  in  front 
of  the  house,  and  behind  grew  other 
flowers.  These  my  mother  tended  her 
self;  the  lawn  was  cared  for  by  a 
gardener.  This  man  was  a  great  thorn 
in  the  side  of  all  of  us  who  visited  her. 
He  spent  his  days  gossiping  cheerily 
over  the  fence,  telling  the  neighbors  de 
tails  like  the  difference  between  the  ther- 
34 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


mometer  in  the  shade  and  in  the  sun. 
He  would  communicate  to  them  at  what 
hour  he  had  arisen  that  morning  and  how 
his  hens  were  laying.  His  cheerful  and 
ceaseless  babble  went  on  whenever  he 
found  an  ear  to  receive  it.  This  old  man 
annoyed  us,  as  I  said.  He  was  a  kindly 
soul,  and  we  had  no  objection  to  him  as 
an  individual,  but  his  prattle  bored  us, 
and  we  felt  that  he  should  work  for  the 
stipend  he  received  for  mo  wing  the  lawn 
and  raking  up  the  leaves.  This  feeling 
our  mother  did  not  share ;  she  was  con 
tented  to  let  him  dawdle  through  the 
hours  of  the  day  if  he  chose,  so  that 
some  time  or  other  the  lawn  was  cut; 
and  as  she  pottered  about  her  flowers, 
gloves  on  her  hands  and  a  wide  shade 
hat  on  her  head  —  for  she  was  of  the 

generation   whose   gentlewomen  were 
35 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


taught  to  be  careful  of  their  complex 
ion  and  their  hands,  and  thought  it  un 
becoming  in  a  delicate  female  to  get 
blowzy  with  sunburn  and  blackened 
with  tan —  she  would  stop  and  talk  with 
him. 

We  would  point  out  to  her  that  she 
was  encouraging  him  in  his  idle  habits, 
and  were  always  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  furnish  her  with  a  strong 
likely  boy  of  eighteen  in  place  of  this 
doddering  and  garrulous  individual.  I 
can  remember  conversations  like  this :  — 

"Mother,  I've  heard  that  Widow 
Johnson's  boy  wants  to  work  —  " 

"  Widow  Johnson's  boy !  That  weedy 
bean-pole  —  all  legs  !  " 

" He's  eighteen—  " 

"I  know  your   eighteen-year-olds," 

my  mother  would  cry.  "  They  stop  work- 
36 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ing  the  moment  your  back  is  turned. 
I  like  my  man ;  I  can  depend  on 
him." 

"  Yes,"  we  would  reply  bitterly, "  you 
can  depend  on  him  to  do  nothing.  Be 
sides,  you  '11  be  helping  the  boy's  mo 
ther." 

We  knew  that  a  practice  of  my 
mother's  was  to  help  along  solitary 
women  less  fortunately  placed  than  she 
had  been. 

But  to  this  suggestion  she  would  re 
ply  with  a  masterful  definiteness  :  — 

"  I  'm  not  an  eleemosynary  institution, 
my  dear." 

There  was  no  arguing  with  her ; 
there  was  no  making  her  see  that  that 
was  precisely  what  she  was.  There 
was  no  use  offering  her  men  in  the 

prime  of  life  to   mow  her  lawn  any 
37 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


more  than  there  was  in  offering  her 
what  she  called  "  tittering  and  hooting 
boys." 

She  was  just  as  bad  about  the  bits 
of  carpentry  that  there  were  to  be  done 
around  the  house.  There  was  a  cer 
tain  workman  who  came  occasionally 
on  odd  jobs  and  whom  we  tried  to  have 
her  get  rid  of,  but  for  whom,  after  all, 
we  had  a  sneaking  fondness. 

I  can  remember  this  old  man  well. 
He  seemed  no  thicker  than  a  piece  of 
paper  and  gave  the  impression  of  some 
odd  ghost,  so  bent-over  was  he,  so  pale, 
—  a  strange,  tanned  pallor,  framed  in 
by  tenuous  hair  and  sparse,  white 
whiskers.  He  moved  brokenly  and 
feebly,  and  yet  clung  with  the  tenacity 
of  a  fly  to  the  side  of  a  roof.  He  liked 

shingling,  he  said ;  it  kept  him  young. 

38 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


This  I  doubt,  nor  have  I  ever  yet  tried 
it  for  the  disease  of  age. 

My  mother  claimed  he  was  a  good 
carpenter.  That  may  have  been  ;  at  any 
rate,  all  the  carpentering  that  was  done, 
was  done  by  him,  from  shingling  to  pot 
tering  over  a  broken  piazza  rail.  What 
especially  irritated  us  about  him  was 
that  his  memory  had  departed  from  him. 
It  was  impossible  for  him  to  remember 
for  ten  consecutive  minutes  where  to 
find  his  tools.  One  could  find  him  at  any 
unexpected  place,  always,  he  said,  look 
ing  for  the  nails  or  the  screwdriver  or 
the  hammer.  He  strewed  them  about 
him  with  as  lavish  a  gesture  as  Millet's 
Sower,  so  one  might  judge  from  the 
length  of  time  he  spent  looking  for 
them.  He  would  wander  from  room  to 

room,   peering   with  nearsighted  eyes 
39 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


into  every  corner  ;  and  sometimes  he 
would  forget  which  tool  it  was  he  had 
lost,  and  would  have  to  go  back  to  find 
out,  and  then  begin  the  search  all  over 
again.  He  never  became  impatient  at 
this,  but  continued  his  long  wanderings 
like  some  little  New  England  "  Wander 
ing  Jew, "  in  sorrow  over  the  unnatural 
perversity  of  his  tools  rather  than  in 
any  anger  against  them. 

A  third  person  my  mother  employed 
of  this  same  kind ;  this  one  a  painter. 
He  was  elderly  also  ;  garrulous,  but  in 
a  different  way  from  the  childlike  prat 
tle  of  the  gardener. 

No,  he  couldn't  tell  how  much  a 
thing  would  cost.  Perhaps  it  would  cost 
so  much,  and  perhaps  so  much;  he 
could  n't  tell  until  he  got  through.  No, 

he  could  n't  tell  you  how  long  it  would 
40 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


take  him,  —  perhaps  a  day,  perhaps 
longer ;  —  he  did  n't  know.  When  would 
he  come?  He  didn't  know;  maybe 
to-morrow,  —  maybe  next  day,  —  he 
could  n't  tell. 

"But,"  my  mother  would  persist, 
"  we  've  got  to  have  that  kitchen  floor 
painted  and  we  've  got  to  know  when 
you  're  coming,  Mr.  Bunner." 

"  "Well,  now,  Mis'  Paine,  I  can't  tell 
you.  Now,  I '11  tell  you  how  it  is;  I  'm 
waitin'  now  for  some  paint  to  paint 
Malcolm's  house,  an'  when  I  get  that 
paint,  I  '11  paint  his  house,  an'  when  I 
get  that  done,  I  '11  do  your  kitchen." 

"  But  while  you  're  waiting,"  my 
mother  would  urge. 

And  you  can  imagine  us  fairly  tramp 
ing  up  and  down  with  rage,  wishing  to 

poke  forth  from  the  doors  the  old  piker. 
41 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


Aud  thus  it  would  go  on,  and  after 
spending  more  or  less  of  kindliness  on 
him,  my  mother  would  at  last  persuade 
the  old  man  to  come  the  next  day. 

As  I  look  back  on  it,  it  seems  as  if 
always  one  or  the  other  of  these  feck 
less  elderly  workmen  was  engaged  in 
doing  some  odd  job  or  other  around  my 
mother's  place,  and  I  think  this  was  very 
likely  true.  I  know  now  why  she  did  it; 
it  gave  her  that  feeling  with  which  we 
older  people  like  to  deceive  ourselves, 
—  and  succeed  according  to  the  clear 
ness  of  our  mental  capacity,  —  the  illu 
sion  of  activity,  of  really  accomplishing 
something ;  and  my  mother  accomplished 
this :  that  she  kept  up  her  house  spick 
and  span  to  her  last  moment.  I  know 
now,  too,  why  she  had  these  elderly 

people  about  her,  and  why  she  couldn't 
42 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


abide  the  smart,  modern  methods  of 
younger  and  more  efficient  people. 
Not  only  had  they  worked  for  her  for 
years  and  she  had  a  loyalty  towards  her 
own  generation,  but  I  think  she  had 
some  deeper  sympathy  and  liking  for 
their  failing  powers.  Possibly  she  saw 
her  own  mirrored  in  theirs ;  perhaps  she 
remembered  when  the  old  carpenter 
was  as  spry  as  a  kitten  and  when  he 
never  so  much  as  mislaid  a  hook-eye. 

They  were  old  and  she  was  old,  but 
they  were  older  than  she,  and  I  think 
that  the  contrast  between  them  gave 
her  a  sense  of  youthful  power.  I  have 
seen  an  aged  mother  be  almost  a  foun 
tain  of  youth.  There  lives  here  an  old 
woman  who  is  upwards  of  ninety,  and 
with  her  live  her  unmarried  daughters, 

—  women  well  along  in  their   sixties. 
43 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


The  old  lady  still  calls  her  daughters 
"the  girls,"  and  orders  them  about 
smartly.  They  are  all  of  the  old  school 
and  they  obey  her  very  well,  but  in  turn 
they  tyrannize  over  her,  look  after  her; 
"  do  for  her,"  as  we  have  it  here.  One 
can  never  drop  in  on  them  without 
their  having  a  story  to  tell  about  some 
new  rash  deed  of  "  mother's  ";  and  so 
they  are  young  in  spirit,  having  a  work 
to  do  in  the  world;  some  one  to  run, 
and  no  chit  of  a  younger  generation  to 
run  them.  Another  reason  for  their 
youthfulness  is  that  the  house  has  not 
had  so  much  as  a  new  matchsafe  for 
twenty  years :  they  yet  have  about  them 
things  all  of  their  own  choosing;  they 
have  not  had  to  part  with  the  familiar 
friends  of  their  youth. 

My  mother's  house  was    like   this. 
44 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"While  she  was  particular  about  repairs, 
new  things  she  would  not  buy.  With 
in -doors,  combined  with  an  austere 
order,  there  was  a  certain  dilapidation 
of  armchairs  due  to  over-use;  the  lamp 
was  old ;  everything  about  her  had  been 
used  for  years,  and  the  presents  which 
we  made  her  stuck  out  like  so  many 
sore  thumbs,  —  I  am  sure  that  many 
of  them  disappeared  into  cupboards 
and  drawers  when  we  took  our  depar 
ture. 

And  when  we  broke  up  our  larger 
house  in  which  we  lived,  and  she  and 
father  came  to  live  in  this  little  one, 
I  remember  she  gave  us  with  lavish 
hand  what  seemed  to  us  the  pick  of  the 
furniture,  and  kept  for  herself  those 
things  that  belonged  to  her  earlier 
years. 

45 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


Have  you  ever  noticed  when  it  is 
that  people  have  their  houses  "  done 
over  "  ?  I  have.  It  usually  occurs  soon 
after  the  daughters  have  been  "out" 
a  while,  and  have  had  time  to  develop 
a  taste  of  their  own.  Then  the  moment 
comes  when  the  furniture  is  rearranged, 
new  touches  are  added,  old-fashioned 
things  sent  away  to  the  attic  for  a  long 
rest,  and  the  house  passes  from  the 
older  generation  to  the  younger.  The 
altered  aspect  of  the  house  shows  that 
the  young  people  are  beginning  to  take 
possession  of  their  own.  Do  you  re 
member  when  so  many  of  the  parlor 
carpets  throughout  the  land  were  done 
away  with  and  little  slippery  rugs  put 
in  their  places? — and  a  wonder  it  is 
that  we  did  n't  all  break  our  necks  slid 
ing  across  the  floor  on  them ! 
46 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


I  have  an  old  friend  who  picks  her 
way  gingerly  across  the  shining,  pol 
ished  floor,  as  much  in  fear  for  her  poor 
stiff  bones  as  if  she  were  walking  on 
ice.  As  she  walks  carefully  from  one 
treacherous  oasis  of  a  rug  to  another 
and  deposits  herself  on  a  Chippendale 
chair,  I  can  but  remember  the  time 
when  the  room  was  full  of  billowy, 
upholstered  chairs,  faulty  in  line,  per 
haps,  but  holding  out  ample,  inviting 
arms  to  you.  And  as  she  perches  her 
self  on  the  uncompromising  colonial 
furniture,  I  know  that  she  regrets  her 
comfortable  old  chairs,  though  she 
bravely  pretends  she  thinks  the  new 
furniture  a  great  improvement. 

Here  is  another  of  the  milestones  of 
age;  we  pretend  as  hard  as  we  can  that 

we  like  many  things  we  don't  like,  that 
47 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


we  may  not  seem  old-fashioned  to  our 
dear  ones.  We  do  what  we  can  to  keep 
pace  with  them  until  our  old  legs  are 
weary  with  running;  but  our  children, 
do  the  best  we  may,  are  far  in  advance 
of  us.  We  make  concession  after  con 
cession  of  our  own  preferences,  even 
to  giving  up  the  things  that  lived  with 
us  when  we  were  young  and  which 
grew  old  with  us  and  old-fashioned 
even  as  we  did.  To  please  our  children 
we  treacherously  discard  them,  pre 
tending  we  think  them,  in  their  old- 
fashioned  comfort,  as  hideous  as  do 
our  young  people.  My  friend  points 
out  the  purity  of  design  of  the  new 
furniture,  —  but  she  has  had  one  of  the 
old  parlor  chairs  done  over  and  put  in 
her  own  bedroom.  She  sits  there  a  good 
deal.  I  have  noticed  that  older  women 
48 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


work  and  read  much  in  their  own 
rooms,  and  I  sometimes  wonder  if  it 
is  n't  because  the  rest  of  the  house  has 
become  strange  and  unhomelike. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   CONVENTIONS   OF  AGE 

I  CAN  remember  when  I  was  a  young 
woman  how  many  of  my  mother's  foi 
bles  fretted  me,  for  I  was  like  the  rest. 
I  had  n't  reasoned  it  out  any  more  than 
most  people  do,  but  I  held  some  immu 
table  opinions  about  the  conduct  of  age. 
If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over  again,  I 
should  know  better.  I  should  cherish 
each  of  my  mother's  restless  days,  be 
cause  I  would  know  that  her  very  rest 
lessness  and  occasional  discontent  were 
the  signs  that  life  was  keen  within  her, 
and  that  I  myself  had  made  her  rest 
less,  because  as  a  too  zealous  daughter 
I  had  in  a  measure,  together  with  Time, 

taken  from  her  some  of  the  occupations 
50 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


that  still  by  right  belonged  to  her.  I 
would  let  her  have  her  way  on  all  the 
minor  points  of  dress  and  occupation. 
I  would  not  criticize  the  old  workmen 
she  chose  ;  and,  above  all,  I  would  not 
try  to  impose  on  her  any  of  my  ideas 
of  how  an  older  woman  should  act. 
For  young  people  have  hard-and-fast 
notions  concerning  older  women's  ac 
tions.  When  we  depart  from  them, 
they  make  a  personal  grievance  of  it. 

I  do  not  think  I  am  exaggerating 
when  I  say  that  there  is  no  class  of 
society  so  bound  down  by  convention, 
and  for  no  good  reason,  as  are  the  old 
est  of  all.  A  young  and  pretty  woman 
must,  of  course,  walk  carefully  along 
life's  paths;  she  must  take  care  to 
avoid  even  the  appearance  of  evil.  As 

she  grows  older,  a  suitable  amount  of 
51 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


convention  in  the  mother  of  a  family  is 
a  wholesome  balance.  But  when  a  wo 
man  grows  old,  when  she  has  climbed 
the  ladder  of  years  beyond  the  point 
where  scandal  could  touch  her,  one 
would  think  that  she  might  lay  aside 
minor  conventions  of  life;  that  at  last 
she  might  do  what  she  pleased,  only 
limited  by  her  own  failing  strength. 
There  are  so  few  things,  after  all,  left 
for  us  to  do,  so  few  that  we  have  the 
heart  left  for,  or  the  wish  for  now,  that 
it  would  seem  only  right  that  we  should 
follow  our  caprice  in  the  small  matters 
that  still  belong  to  us. 

I  recently  heard  a  young  woman  my 
daughter's  age  complain  somewhat  af 
ter  this  fashion :  — 

"  There  are  no  more  real  grandmo 
thers  left  in  the  world !  I  don't  know 
52 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


what  the  nowadays  children  are  going  to 
do.  How  much  my  dear  old  grandmo 
ther  meant  to  me !  As  far  back  as  lean  re 
member,  her  sweet  white  head,  crowned 
with  its  snow-white  cap,  was  always  at 
her  favorite  window  in  summer,  and 
in  winter  she  sat  beside  the  open  fire 
with  her  feet  upon  a  little  hassock,  like 
Whistler's  mother.  We  children  always 
knew  where  to  find  grandma.  She  was 
always  so  glad  when  we  came.  I  can 
see  yet  the  welcome  in  her  eyes  when 
we  would  run  in  on  her.  She  would  in 
vent  little  games  for  us  and  tell  us  lit 
tle  stories  as  long  as  we  would  stay. 
The  lovely  part  of  it  was  that  she  was 
always  there.  No  matter  if  mother  was 
out,  or  any  one  else,  we  could  be  sure 
of  finding  grandma  ready  to  hear  all 

about  our  little  joys  and  troubles." 
53 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


During  this  little  recital,  which,  of 
course,  was  not  a  long  peroration,  but 
was  given  to  us  in  the  broken  phrases 
of  a  conversation,  I  had  a  very  vivid  pic 
ture  of  this  old  lady,  probably  only  a 
few  years  older  than  myself,  who  was 
"  always  there."  What  infirmity,  I  won 
dered,  made  her  be  there  all  the  time? 
When  an  older  woman  is  "always 
there,"  depend  upon  it,  there  is  some 
deeper  reason  and  a  sadder  one  than  that 
she  was  waiting  for  her  little  grand 
children.  No  one  knows  this  better  than 
I  myself,  for  I,  too,  am  "  there,"  for 
one  reason  or  another,  more  than  I 
wish  to  be.  Oh,  I  knew  very  well  how 
eagerly  she  waited  for  those  little  grand 
children  of  hers,  and  how  the  lonely, 
gray,  spacious  hours  brightened  up  in 
the  flicker  of  their  laughter.  I  knew, 
54 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


too,  as  they  got  over  being  little  babies, 
how  brief  their  sweet,  tumultuous  visits 
must  have  been.  It  is  only  very  little 
children  who  spend  much  time  in  their 
grandmother's  skirts.  For  a  long  time 
past  I  have  been  conscious  that  Betty 
only  stays  with  me  when  she  is  kept  in 
or  has  nothing  better  to  do.  Once  a 
child  has  grown  into  liberty,  you  may 
be  sure  it  will  not  spend  overlong 
spaces  of  time  with  its  grandparents, 
unless  they,  too,  are  active  enough  to 
be  in  the  field,  like  an  old  English 
friend  of  mine  who,  at  seventy-three, 
with  undimmed  enthusiasm,  is  teaching 
his  grandchildren  to  ride  and  shoot  and 
whip  a  trout  stream.  You  may  depend 
upon  it  that  they  idolize  him,  not  because 
he  is  "there"  all  the  time,  but  because 
he  can  do  all  these  things  better  than 
55 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


they  can,  and  is,  besides,  a  living  spring 
of  fishing-tackle,  rods,  and  other  sport 
ing  goods. 

But  this  was  not  all  my  friend  had  to 
say.  After  her  picture  of  her  own  poor 
grandmother,  she  took  up  the  first  part 
of  her  argument. 

"  Nowadays,"  said  she, "  I  look  around 
in  vain  for  sweet  old  ladies  like  my 
grandmother.  There  do  not  seem  to  l)e 
any  old  ladies  any  more;  they  seem  to 
have  gone  out  of  fashion  along  with 
the  dear,  pretty  caps  they  used  to  wear, 
and  that  they  looked  so  sweet  in.  Now 
adays  older  women  dress  just  like  their 
daughters.  Instead  of  ever  being  where 
their  grandchildren  can  find  them,  they 
are  off,  if  you  please,  at  clubs  or  play 
ing  cards  or  even  taking  a  jaunt  in  a 
motor-car ! " 

56 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


She  said  this,  mind  you,  under  my 
very  nose,  and  I  did  n't  know  whether 
I  was  vaguely  pleased  with  the  subtle 
flattery  that  she  ignored  the  fact  that  I 
was  a  very  case  in  point  of  her  recal 
citrant  new-fangled  grandmother,  or 
whether  to  feel  a  little  vexed  with  her 
for  being  so  obtuse.  For  a  moment  I 
entertained  the  idea  of  allowing  myself 
the  luxury  of  playing  at  being  her  age, 
and  then  I  felt  I  had  better  come  out 
flat-footed,  and  say,  "  Well,  Eleanor,  I 
suppose  you  think  I  had  better  wear  a 
cap  and  give  up  the  whist  club";  but 
I  knew  she  would  answer,  with  a  look 
of  na'ive  wonder  in  her  soft  brown  eyes, 
"  Why,  auntie,  you  're  not  old !  "  So  all 
I  said  was,  "  I  suppose,  my  dear,  the 
conditions  of  life  are  easier  and  the 
doctors  are  better,  so  nowadays  many 
57 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


older  people  manage  to  keep  their  in 
firmities  at  bay  a  little  longer." 

I  think  that  back  of  Eleanor's  ideal 
of  a  grandmother  there  lay  a  good  deal 
of  unconscious  selfishness.  An  elderly 
mother  who  sits  contentedly  by  the  fire 
all  day  is  a  far  smaller  responsibility 
than  a  mother  that  one  can  never  put  a 
hand  on,  and  who,  at  a  moment's  notice, 
goes  off  on  perilous  expeditions. 

Everything  Eleanor  had  said  about 
her  grandmother  had  ruffled  me  more 
than  it  should,  so  after  I  got  over  my 
impatience,  I  asked  myself  why  I  had 
been  so  annoyed,  after  all.  I  found  the 
answer  soon  enough.  In  lamenting  that 
there  were  no  grandmothers  left  like 
hers,  Eleanor  had  clearly  defined  the 
position  that  the  average  person  takes 

toward  older  women. 
58 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


Each  generation  permits  a  different 
type  of  young  girl,  but  the  older  wo 
man  must  not  change;  her  outline  is 
fixed  and  immovable.  She  must  be  like 
Eleanor's  grandmother, "  always  there," 
—  waiting,  waiting,  with  a  smiling  face 
through  the  long,  quiet,  empty  hours, 
for  her  grandchildren  to  come  home. 

I  read  a  clever  poem  the  other  day, 
the  refrain  of  which  was,  "  I  'm  looking 
forward  to  old  age." 

"Then,"  said  the  young  writer,  "at 
last  I  can  be  perfectly  comfortable.  I 
can  lay  aside  the  minor  conventions 
along  with  my  tight  shoes  and  tight 
corsets.  I  can  at  last  do  as  I  please. 
I  'm  looking  forward  to  old  age." 

When  this  young  woman  arrives  at 
the  Land  of  Old  Age,  though,  indeed, 

she  may,  it  is  true,  lay  aside  shoes  that 
59 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


are  too  small  and  clothes  that  are  too 
tight,  she  will,  on  the  other  hand,  find 
a  whole  new  set  of  rules  and  regulations 
to  live  by,  and  regulations  that  are  not 
self-imposed,  but  imposed  by  custom 
and  enforced  by  the  younger  genera 
tion.  There  she  will  find  waiting  for 
her  an  ideal  of  what  she  should  be  her 
self,  —  the  ideal  which  was  attained  by 
Eleanor's  poor  grandmother;  a  grace 
ful,  shadowy  person,  sitting,  her  feet 
on  a  hassock,  like  Whistler's  mother; 
some  one  who  has  none  of  the  impulses 
of  youth,  which,  in  a  grandmother,  the 
younger  generation  finds  so  disconcert 
ing.  Even  the  costume  of  this  ideal  is 
decided  upon  by  our  exacting  young 
people.  She  shall  wear,  our  ideal  grand 
mother,  soft  black  or  gray  draperies,  a 

piece  of  beautiful  old  lace  at  her  neck, 
60 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


or  a  white  fichu  of  rare  old-fashioned 
workmanship  crossed  on  her  bosom. 
Caps  are  no  longer  the  fashion,  —  but 
our  custom-ridden  children  regret  them. 
For  myself,  should  I  live  to  be  ninety, 
I  hope  I  shall  fall  short  of  this  ideal  in 
all  respects.  I  do  not  wish  to  become  a 
mere  ornamental  nonentity  about  whom 
people  shall  say,  "  "What  a  sweet  old 
lady !  "  I  hope  that  I  shall  keep  my 
family  alert  over  my  misdeeds  until  my 
end,  for  then  I  shall  be  sure  that  I  shall 
not  have  slipped  altogether  among  the 
shadows  before  I  go. 
i  Think  what  the  ideal  of  old  age  that 
seems  so  beautiful  implies ;  it  means  that 
the  body  has  so  lost  its  resiliency  that 
the  wholesome  desire  for  action  has 
passed,  that  one's  own  life  and  actions 

have  ceased  to  have  an  interest  for  one, 
61 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


and  that  instead  of  having  to  snatch  time 
to  play  with  one's  grandchildren,  one 
has  nothing  to  do  but  wait,  —  nothing  in 
the  world  to  do  but  "  be  there."  It  is  too 
great  a  price  to  pay  for  conforming  to 
an  ideal  whose  greatest  value,  after  all, 
lies  in  a  certain  picturesqueness.  I  do 
not  think,  either,  that  any  middle-aged 
woman  would  consciously  choose  to 
have  her  own  mother  one  of  these  ideal 
grandmothers,  although  there  are  ways 
in  which  each  one  of  our  daughters 
would  be  glad  to  have  us  conform  to  an 
ideal  of  elderly  conduct  a  little  more 
closely. 

There  are  daughters  who,  like  my 
own,  limit  the  field  of  their  mothers' 
activities,  believing  firmly  that  they  are 
doing  so  in  the  interest  of  their  mothers' 

health.   There  are  a  great  many  other 
62 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


middle-aged  women  whom  I  see  about 
me  who  constantly  curtail  their  mothers' 
personal  liberties,  because  these  old 
ladies  wish  to  do  things  which,  if  you 
please,  shock  the  fastidious  daughters 
in  what  they  think  is  fitting  for  the 
aged.  These  young  women  know  so 
definitely  what  an  older  woman  may 
and  may  not  say  and  do  and  wear! 

"  Mediaeval "  is  a  word  I  hear  often 
nowadays  on  the  lips  of  the  young  peo 
ple.  So-and-So  has  " mediaeval"  ideas 
on  the  subject  of  divorce  or  what-not. 
All  older  people  are  supposed  to  hold 
"  mediaeval "  ideas,  and  when  it  turns 
out  that  one  of  us  happens  to  have  read 
and  digested  a  new  economic  theory  or 
some  new  book  of  vital  interest,  it  is  al 
ways  an  irritating  moment  to  me  when 

a  younger  woman  remarks,  in  a  patron- 
63 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


izing  way,  "  Why,  how  Mrs.  So-and-So 
keeps  up  with  the  times ! "  But  there 
is  no  reactionary  older  woman  I  know 
who  holds  as  "  mediaeval "  opinions  as 
those  which  the  ordinary  younger  women 
have  about  the  older  generation.  The 
broadest-minded  women  I  know  are  as 
tradition  -  bound  as  possible  when  it 
comes  to  what  we  older  women  may  do. 
Many  an  older  woman,  for  instance, 
finds  a  style  which  especially  suits  her, 
—  a  style  which  does  not  conform  to 
the  costume  in  which  the  poetical  im 
agination  pictures  the  dwellers  in  the 
Land  of  Old  Age.  I  had  an  old  friend 
who  happened  to  fancy,  as  accessories 
to  a  costume  in  which  to  pass  her  de 
clining  years,  a  bustle  and  a  certain 
false  front.  Bustles  went  their  way, 

and  a  few  people  still  clung  to  them; 
64 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


then  even  the  faithful  gave  them  up, 
but  my  friend  still  wore  hers  valiantly. 
It  suited  her  so  to  do,  —  and  why  not? 
Had  n't  she  followed  the  fashions  long 
enough?  Hadn't  she  earned  her  right 
to  wear  what  she  chose?  That  was  the 
way  she  looked  at  it.  She  was  a  valiant, 
high-spirited  old  lady,  full  of  good- 
tempered  anecdotes  about  every  one 
you  ever  heard  of,  fond  of  all  the 
bright  things  of  life,  —  young  people, 
dance  music,  company,  and  bright 
colors ;  the  last  she  wore  unflinchingly. 
So  gayly  indeed  and  gladly  did  she 
walk  up  the  road  of  time  that  she  died, 
advanced  in  years,  without  old  age  hav 
ing  seemingly  laid  a  finger  on  her  blithe 
spirit.  If  the  young  people  had  a  quiet 
smile  at  the  expense  of  her  bustle,  it 

was  a  tender  one.  The  false  front  which 
65 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


she  wore  with  great  artlessness  was  an 
ornament  to  her  personality.  None  who 
loved  her,  and  they  were  many,  would 
have  had  her  altered  in  any  respect. 
There  was  but  one  exception  to  this  — 
her  widowed  daughter,  who  with  her 
little  girls  made  her  home  with  her 
mother.  The  bustle  and  false  front 
caused  her  the  keenest  pain.  I  do  not 
believe  my  friend  ever  got  herself  ready 
for  a  "  party  "  without  the  daughter  try 
ing  to  decrease  the  size  of  that  bustle. 
She  never  gave  up  trying.  I  remember 
waiting  for  my  friend  and  hearing  in 
the  hall  above  me  the  sounds  of  argu 
ment,  and  at  last  from  the  stairs  my 
friend's  voice :  "  For  the  hundredth 
time,  Emily,  I  will  not  go  out  looking 
like  a  pancake !  I  tell  you  I  should  n't 

feel  decent!" 

66 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


She  came  into  the  room,  her  flowing 
silk  rustling  and  creaking,  her  bonnet 
brave  with  colors,  and  I  couldn't,  as 
I  looked  at  her,  understand  how  any 
daughter,  however  hide-bound,  could 
have  wished  to  alter  a  hem's  breadth  of 
her  high-hearted,  courageous  costume. 
My  friend  loved  every  one  to  be  happy 
and  contented  around  her,  and  I  often 
think  how  many  small  annoyances  she 
might  have  been  spared  had  her  daugh 
ter  not  had  such  firm  convictions  con 
cerning  the  conventional  dress  of  age. 
I  am  glad  to  relate,  however,  that  my 
old  friend  wore  her  bustle,  her  daugh 
ter  notwithstanding,  almost  to  her  dying 
day.  I  hope  they  buried  it  with  her,  — 
she  made  a  brave  fight  for  it.  She  is  to 
me  an  inspiring  memory.  When  my 

children  try — oh,  very  gently — to  take 
67 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


from  me  some  little  habit  or  some  pe 
culiarity  of  dress,  I  think  of  her  and 
smilingly  hold  on  to  my  own,  for  I  will 
not  encourage  them  in  their  stupid 
and  "  mediasval "  idea  of  the  fitness 
of  things.  I  will  not,  at  my  time  of 
life,  have  my  individuality  pruned  and 
clipped.  In  the  matter  of  dress  there 
are  endless  limitations  for  us  older  peo 
ple.  All  the  lighter  colors  are  supposed 
to  be  unsuitable  for  us ;  and  so  for  some 
of  us  they  are  from  an  aesthetic  point 
of  view,  though  I  have  known  many  a 
middle-aged  woman  and  many  a  pink- 
cheeked,  snowy-haired  grandmother  to 
whom  pale  pink  would  have  been  every 
bit  as  becoming  as  the  pale  lavender 
which  custom  permits. 

I  know  one  sweet  old  lady  who  has 

always  loved  pink  as  a  favorite  color. 

68 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


She  confessed  to  me  that  it  was  a  cross 
to  her  when  she  grew  too  old  to  wear  it. 

"Well,  why  don't  you  anyway?"  I 
asked  her,  knowing  very  well  why.  / 
would  not  have  the  courage  to  blossom 
out  in  so  much  as  one  daring  pink  rib 
bon,  but,  "Why  don't  you?"  said  I. 

"  I  do,"  she  replied  mysteriously,  "  I 
do." 

I  looked  at  her  simple  black  gown. 

"  Oh,  not  on  the  outside !  But,"  said 
she,  lowering  her  voice,  "  I  always  run 
in  plenty  of  pink  ribbon  in  my  things, 
and  I  have  pink  ribbon  garters ! "  she 
concluded  triumphantly. 

And  only  an  older  woman  who  has 
been  cut  off  by  an  arbitrary  custom 
from  many  of  the  pretty  gay  things  of 
life  will  understand  what  a  comfort 
those  pink  ribbon  garters  were  to  her. 
69 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


One  of  my  friends  has  already  reached 
the  age  of  eighty  without  her  interest 
in  life  being  in  any  degree  abated,  and, 
what  is  far  rarer,  without  her  desire  to 
be  up  and  doing  being  in  any  degree 
diminished  by  age's  infirmities.  She  has, 
perhaps,  a  more  transparent  look  than 
she  had  some  fifteen  years  ago,  but  she 
is  still  as  erect  as  a  girl.  Except  for 
looks,  for  her  beautiful  white  hair  and 
her  old-lady  dresses,  —  she  happens  to 
be  one  who  takes  kindly  to  the  wearing 
of  lace  fichus,  —  she  is  everything  that 
conventionally  an  older  woman  should 
not  be.  You  do  not  find  her  "  there," 
—  not  she ;  and  not  only  is  she  not  there, 
but  she  does  n't  tell  her  daughters  where 
she  is  going.  They  are  between  Mar 
garet's  age  and  mine,  and  discuss 

"  Mother's "  wild,  headstrong  ways  in 
70 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


my  presence.  She  gives  them  a  great 
deal  of  trouble  and  anxiety,  and  it  is  n't 
all  by  any  means  simple  worry  for  fear 
she  may  do  herself  some  harm  or  over 
tax  her  strength.  She  keeps  a  life  of  her 
own.  Since  her  daughters  have  in  the 
natural  order  of  things  assumed  the 
helm,  she  has  interested  herself  in  vari 
ous  intellectual  pursuits;  she  attends 
lectures  not  only  here,  but  in  the  sur 
rounding  towns.  She  is  valiant  in  the 
field  of  missionary  labor.  As  her  daugh 
ter  sighs :  "  It  seems  to  me  we  never 
send  out  cards  for  anything  that  mother 
does  n't  take  that  time  for  getting  up 
barrels  for  the  Indians ! "  You  see,  her 
activities  interfere  with  the  family,  and 
they  will  neither  let  her  go  her  way 
unmolested  nor  will  they  accept  her 

activity  without  protest.    She  is,  and 
Tl 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


partly  because  of  these  arbitrary  con 
ventionalities,  a  great  care  to  her  daugh 
ters. 

One  of  them  came  in  the  other  day 
sighing:  — 

"  Well,  I  've  got  to  go  with  mother 
to  Elenwood  to  hear  that  man  lecture 
on  < Labor  Conditions'  to-day.  I  don't 
see  where  I  'm  to  find  time." 

"Your  mother  couldn't  go  alone,  I 
suppose?  "  I  asked  tentatively. 

"  She  could,"  replied  this  poor  daugh 
ter,  "for  she's  to  meet  friends  at  the 
other  end,  but  it  looks  so  bad  for  a  wo 
man  of  mother's  age  to  go  around  the 
country  alone.  As  if  her  children  cared 
nothing  for  her ! " 

It  would  be  a  great  relief  to  them  all 
if  this  active  old  lady  would  stay  at 

home  more.  I  am  glad  she  does  n't.  My 

72 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


high-spirited  friend  is  one  of  those  who 
are  helping  to  kill  out  the  conventions 
which  are  troublesome  weeds  in  the 
Land  of  Old  Age. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OTHER  PEOPLE'S  MEDICINE 

ANOTHER  convention  that  shackles  the 
lives  of  most  older  women  is  the  methods 
which  their  grown  children  employ  to 
conserve  their  elders'  health.  Each  fam 
ily  has  its  own  particular  fetish  as  to 
what  "Mother"  ought  to  do  for  her 
health  ;  almost  all  older  women  who  have 
their  children  living  with  them  have  to 
submit  themselves  to  the  hygienic  fads 
of  their  sons  and  daughters.  In  my  own 
case  it  is  carriages  ;  they  are  the  bane 
of  my  life.  I  could  keep  an  accurate  re 
cord  of  how  years  are  crowding  on  me 
by  the  way  my  children  send  me  around 
instead  of  letting  me  walk.  When  Mar 
garet  begins,  "  Colds  are  terribly  preva- 
74 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


lent  at  this  time  of  year.  Have  you 
heard,  Dudley,  that  Mrs.  Sears  has  got 
pneumonia  ?  "  —  then  I  know  that  she 
wants  me  to  drive  to  the  reception  or 
wherever  I  am  going. 

To  any  one  who  has  not  passed  from 
middle  age  into  the  place  where  people 
live  who  are  already  counted  old,  it 
may  seem  a  far  cry  between  Mrs.  Sears's 
pneumonia  and  my  having  a  carriage 
on  a  sunny  fall  day,  but  those  who  are 
living  in  that  country  where  older  peo 
ple  dwell  will  understand.  To  listen  to 
our  children  talk  to  us,  you  might  think 
that  all  we  older  people  might  live  a 
thousand  years  if  we  only  did  all  the 
tiresome,  unpleasant  things  for  our 
health  that  our  children  want  us  to  do, 
and  I  suppose  that  I  ought  to  be  glad 
that  my  Margaret  has  a  mania  for  car- 
75 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


riages.  That  is  the  word  for  it,  —  a 
mania.  At  the  slightest  excuse  I  am 
driven  in  a  jolting,  germ-laden,  livery- 
stable  hack  to  and  from  the  reception, 
concert,  or  lecture  or  church.  This 
procedure  has  saved  me,  according  to 
Margaret,  all  the  diseases  and  ailments 
of  mankind  except  perhaps  the  bubonic 
plague,  and  if  that  disease  were  preva 
lent  in  our  neighborhood,  I  dare  say 
Margaret  would  find  means  of  proving 
a  carriage  had  saved  me  that. 

Still,  there  are  friends  of  mine  whose 
daughters  have  so  much  more  unplea 
sant  ways  of  preserving  their  mothers' 
lives,  that  I  should  be  glad  that  it  is 
nothing  worse  than  hacks. 

My  friend,  Mrs.  Wellington,  for  in 
stance,  is  taken  out  and  walked  and 

walked  about  until  she  almost  drops, 
76 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


because  her  children  believe  that  people 
get  old  and  stiff  because  they  don't 
walk  enough.  As  if  it  was  n't  because 
they  are  stiff  in  their  joints  that  makes 
them  want  to  keep  quiet ! 

Mrs.  Granger  is  dreadfully  afraid  she 
will  have  to  give  up  breakfast,  which  is 
a  meal  she  has  always  especially  enjoyed, 
just  to  keep  peace.  Every  little  turn  of 
any  kind  that  she  has,  her  children  put 
down  to  her  liking  for  griddle  -  cakes 
and  syrup  in  the  morning,  since  they 
have  gone  in  for  the  no-breakfast  fad. 
She  says  that  every  time  she  eats  a  good 
comfortable  breakfast,  the  family  sit 
around  with  faces  as  long  as  her  arm, 
and  she  is  just  on  the  point  of  giving 
in,  although  she  knows  it  will  be  bad 
for  her. 

Mothers   cannot  bear  to   see    their 

77 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


children  worried  and  distressed,  and  it 
is  here  that  we  are  ae  much  at  our 
children's  mercy  as  we  were  when  they 
were  little  things  at  our  knee  and  could 
always  get  around  us  with  tears  well 
ing  to  the  eyes  and  quivering  upper 

UP. 

When  Margaret  spoke  last  about  a 
carriage,  she  had  a  little  worried  ex 
pression  on  her  brow  that  was  so  like 
Margaret  when  she  was  two  years  old 
that  I  would  go  to  church  in  a  hay- 
wagon  to  please  her.  I  never  could 
bear  to  see  that  little  puzzled,  distressed 
look  on  her  face.  So  I  submitted  with 
fairly  good  grace  to  the  proposition 
that  I  should  go  to  Mrs.  Carter's  recep 
tion  in  the  hack.  I  made  a  little  protest, 
however,  because,  unless  I  did  that,  I 
should  soon  lose  the  use  of  my  legs 
78 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


altogether  and  perhaps  degenerate  into 
a  person  who  has  to  be  pushed  around 
in  a  wheel  chair  before  I  am  much  older. 
I  said :  — 

"Well,  Margaret,  I  will  go  to-day 
just  to  please  you,  but  the  next  time 
I  am  going  to  use  my  own  judgment 
about  it.  I  have  been  going  in  a  car 
riage  all  summer  to  avoid  sunstroke 
and  apoplexy,  and  now  that  fall  has 
come,  I  must  avoid  pneumonia  and  ton 
sillitis,  and  in  the  winter  I  shall  be  avoid 
ing  slipping  on  the  ice ;  but  there  's  got 
to  be  some  cranny  in  the  year  when  I 
can  go  to  places  on  my  own  two  feet." 

But  while  I  will  submit  to  carriages, 
I  will  not  submit  to  everything,  and  I 
draw  the  line  at  a  trained  nurse  every 
time  I  am  a  little  ill.  Kecently  I  sent 

one  of  them  flying,  and  while  I  might 
79 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


have  made  the  scene  easier  for  every 
one,  still  it  did  me  good  to  get  rid  of 
that  woman  in  the  summary  way  I  did, 
—  or,  rather,  made  Margaret  do;  for 
this  was  one  of  the  occasions  when  I 
shirked  and  took  advantage  of  one  of 
the  privileges  age  gives  us.  Indeed,  I 
went  so  far  as  to  tell  Margaret  that 
the  trained  nurse  or  I  would  leave  the 
house. 

Of  course,  when  I  am  really  ill  and 
prostrate,  and  have  to  be  watched  at 
night,  then  I  am  willing  to  have  all  the 
discomforts  —  to  say  nothing  of  the 
needless  expense  —  of  having  such  a 
woman  about.  But  when  I  am  well,  or 
pretty  nearly  well,  to  have  a  capped 
and  aproned  and  uniformed  woman, 
with  a  strong,  dominant  will,  following 
my  every  footstep  and  bringing  me  un- 
80 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


palatable  things  to  eat  every  two  hours, 
—  why  then,  I  shall  always  rebel,  as  I 
have  done  this  time. 

I  said  to  Margaret :  "  This  illness 
has  been  a  trying  one  to  me  in  every 
respect.  I  have  never  had  to  keep  in 
my  bed  any  longer  than  a  morning  at 
a  time  since  you  were  born.  I  have 
lain  in  bed  now  six  days ;  three  of 
these  days  I  might  as  well  have  been 
up." 

At  which  Margaret  replied:  "I  am 
sure  you  are  better  for  the  rest,  dar 
ling." 

I  know  1 7m  not.  The  reason  I  know 
this  is  that  the  last  three  days,  when 
ever  the  nurse  and  Margaret  left  me 
alone  to  go  down  and  get  some  un 
pleasant  eatable  from  the  kitchen  for 

wie,  I  got  up  and  sat  in  my  rocker  at 
81 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


the  window,  which  rested  my  back, 
though  I  hated  to  hurry  back  to  bed, 
as  of  course  I  had  to  do  whenever  I 
heard  them  coming.  So  I  might  just 
as  well,  as  you  can  see  for  yourself, 
have  been  up  and  dressed  all  the  time, 
without  having  the  nervous  strain  of 
listening  for  their  return. 

Then,  too,  the  first  day  I  was  ill,  I 
dressed  and  went  downstairs.  Every 
body  made  a  great  outcry,  and  they 
sent  for  the  doctor  again,  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  making  me  do  as  they  said. 
He  is  a  very  sensible  young  man,  and 
I  approve  of  a  great  many  of  his  ideas, 
but  at  the  same  time,  like  most  of  the 
modern  school,  he  carries  much  too  far 
the  modern  theory  of  keeping  a  person 
in  bed  until  his  muscles  grow  weak 

and  his  back  aches,  though,  of  course, 

82 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


he  is  not  nearly  so  unreasonable  about 
this  as  my  own  children. 

"  I  ?d  like  to  ask  you  a  simple  ques 
tion,  Doctor,"  I  said  to  him  when  he 
told  me  that,  as  long  as  my  tempera 
ture  was  above  normal,  I  would  have 
to  stay  in  bed.  "  How  do  all  the  work- 
ingmen  do  —  all  the  people  with  livings 
to  earn  —  when  their  temperatures  go 
to  102?" 

He  pretended,  when  they  have  a 
fever,  that  even  workingmen  have  to 
stay  at  home  first  or  last;  but  I  don't 
believe  it.  When  people  have  to  earn 
a  living,  nothing  will  convince  me  that 
they  pop  thermometers  down  their 
throats  every  time  their  stomachs  get 
upset. 

What  neither  the  doctor  nor  my  chil 
dren  understand  is  that  I  know  more 
83 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


about  matters  concerning  my  own 
health  than  any  one  else.  During  my 
long  life  I  have,  of  course,  had  my  ups 
and  downs  of  health  like  other  people, 
and  with  the  advancing  of  years,  espe 
cially  the  last  three,  my  strength  and 
endurance  have  lessened  perceptibly, 
and  I,  like  other  middle-aged  people, 
have  had  to  give  myself  care,  so  I  have 
learned  pretty  well  what  things  to  avoid 
and  how  to  treat  my  own  idiosyncra 
sies. 

During  this  illness,  how  I  longed  for 
seme  of  those  old,  easy-going  days, 
when,  even  though  I  did  n't  feel  well, 
I  managed  to  get  downstairs  and  sit 
quietly  around  with  my  book  or  even 
have  a  whiff  of  fresh  air;  and  how  I 
longed  for  the  days  when  I  lay  down 

or  eat  up   as  I  felt  inclined,  instead 

84 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


of  lying  rigid  and  aching  in  my  bed, 
watched  like  a  cat  by  a  strange  woman 
from  morning  till  night  and  from  night 
till  morning.  How  I  disliked  that  cot 
put  up  in  my  bedroom  for  her  to  sleep 
in! 

And  this  was  not  the  worst  of  it.  It 
seemed  to  me  as  if  that  woman  deliber 
ately  hid  all  my  things.  One  would  think, 
for  instance,  that,  having  made  a  pain 
ful  attempt  to  do  my  hair,  —  and  she 
almost  pulled  out  the  few  remaining 
strands  that  are  left  me,  and  with  which 
I  am  naturally  unwilling  to  part,  —  it 
would  have  occurred  to  her  to  replace 
the  brush  and  comb  and  other  articles 
where  she  found  them.  When  I  slipped 
out  of  my  bed  to  do  my  own  hair  in  a 
comfortable  way,  I  could  find  nothing 

whatever  to  do  it  with;  all  my  toilet 
85 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


articles,  which  ordinarily  I  could  have 
put  my  hand  on  in  the  dark,  had  disap 
peared.  I  looked  all  over  the  room  for 
them;  they  had  vanished  utterly  as  if 
she  had  swallowed  them.  I  wandered 
up  and  down,  trying  to  find  them,  and, 
I  will  confess,  so  vexed  that  I  had  n't 
any  ears  for  Margaret's  approach. 
When  she  came  into  the  room  and 
found  me  up,  she  exasperated  me  still 
more  by  saying,  "  "Why,  darling,  how 
did  you  happen  to  be  up?  Why  didn't 
you  let  the  trained  nurse  get  whatever 
you  wanted?  " 

"  Margaret,"  I  said,  "  keep  that  wo 
man  out  of  here  for  fifteen  minutes, 
because  I  don't  want  to  say  anything 
that  I  shall  be  sorry  for  later.  I  sup 
pose  she  does  what  she  conceives  to  be 
her  duty,  but  a  more  disorderly  and  ill- 
86 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


trained  woman  it  hasn't  been  my  lot  to 
meet.  Where 's  my  toothbrush?  Where 
are  my  brush  and  comb?  What  has  she 
done  with  my  licorice  tablets?  And  I 
can  tell  you  frankly  that  if  she  has 
touched  my  pen  and  paper,  —  even 
though  I  don't  want  them  now,  —  I 
shall  have  to  tell  her  what  I  think  of 
her.  Be  so  kind  as  to  find  my  brush  and 
comb  so  that  I  can  do  my  hair  with 
some  comfort.  Trained  nurses  ought  to 
be  taught  not  to  do  one's  hair  up  in 
wads  and  make  them  feel  like  English 
walnuts  to  lie  on !  " 

I  don't  pretend  that  this  was  a  gra 
cious  speech,  and  it  is  not  the  way  that 
I  usually  feel  or  talk  to  any  one,  espe 
cially  to  my  daughter.  I  merely  quote 
myself  to  show  to  what  a  state  of  exas 
peration  a  woman  of  my  age  and  train- 
87 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


ing  may  be  driven.  That  woman  was 
there  to  take  care  of  my  health;  the 
reason  I  suffered  her  about  me  at  all 
was  to  save  my  family  anxiety.  But  it 
is  extremely  trying  for  a  woman  of 
my  years,  except  in  cases  of  the  most 
dire  necessity,  to  have  fussing  about 
her  person  an  outsider  who  upsets  all 
her  little  personal  ways;  meddles  with 
her  personal  belongings,  and  renders 
her  far  more  uncomfortable  than  com 
fortable.  I  am  sure  that  my  tempera 
ture  remained  above  normal  partly 
through  the  continual  irritation  that  I 
suffered  because  of  these  things. 

Then,  too,  I  know  it  was  not  good 
for  me  to  have  to  watch  every  chance 
to  slip  out  of  bed  to  brush  my  own 
teeth.  Brushing  my  teeth  in  bed,  or, 
worse  still,  allowing  some  one  else  to 
88 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


brush  them  for  me,  is  a  thing  which  I 
should  have  to  be  far  sicker  than  I  have 
ever  been  to  have  happen  to  me.  When 
I  give  up  getting  out  of  bed  to  brush  my 
teeth  of  my  own  accord,  then  my  chil 
dren  may  know  I  'm  really  ill,  and  can 
send,  if  they  like,  for  a  day  nurse  and 
a  night  nurse,  for  I  shall  be  past  caring 
how  many  troublesome  and  disorderly 
women  I  have  about  me. 

Three  times  in  one  night  she  got  up 
to  ask  me  if  I  spoke,  or  if  I  wanted  any 
thing,  just  because  I  cleared  my  throat 
as  it 's  my  habit  to  do.  Finally  I  said 
to  her :  "  Miss  Jenkins,  if  you  came  to 
my  bedside  less  often,  my  chances  of 
going  to  sleep  would,  I  think,  be  greater, 
and  I  'm  sure  it  is  better  for  your  health 
as  well  as  mine  for  you  to  remain  in 
your  own  bed." 

89 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


All  of  which  shows  under  what  a  ner 
vous  pressure  I  have  been  forced  to 
live.  I  explained  my  point  of  view  to 
Margaret  after  the  departure  of  the 
nurse.  I  said  to  my  daughter :  "  Mar 
garet,  I  'm  taking  five  kinds  of  pills  and 
tonics,  and  as  I  've  lived  with  my  own 
stomach  now  a  large  number  of  years, 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  the  reason  why 
my  appetite  remains  so  poor  is  that 
I'm  constantly  dosing,  and  you  need 
bring  me  no  more  of  those  strychnine 
tablets  and  you  can  put  the  pepsin  away, 
and  as  for  the  liquid  things  in  bottles, 
I  won't  take  them  either." 

I  stuck  to  this  for  quite  a  little 
while,  but  Margaret  had  got  it  into  her 
head  that  my  whole  life  and  existence 
depended  on  a  few  little  pasteboard 

boxes  of  pills.   Lines  that  I  don't  re- 
90 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


member  having  seen  in  her  face  since 
Betty  was  so  ill  appeared  there.  Fi 
nally,  she  came  to  my  bedside  and  took 
my  hand  and  said :  "  Mother,  I  simply 
can't  bear  to  see  you  trifling  with  your 
health  in  this  way,  and  I  don't  think  it  's 
fair  to  us  to  do  as  you  are  doing.  You 
can't  get  well,  and  you  can't  get  strong, 
unless  you  will  take  care  of  yourself." 
Her  tone  and  her  whole  manner 
touched  me,  and  I  saw  what  people  who 
live  in  the  Land  of  Old  Age  sometimes 
forget, —  how  great  and  pressing  the 
things  we  know  to  be  of  little  importance 
seem  to  our  great,  grown-up  sons  and 
daughters.  There  was  in  Margaret's 
tone  and  in  her  attitude  almost  that 
poignant  agony  that  a  mother  has  over 
her  sick  child. 

She  could  not  bear  to  have  me  sick. 
91 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


I  saw  then  that  each  meal  that  I  could 
not  eat,  each  time  I  did  not  take  my 
medicine,  —  even  my  just  rebellion 
against  my  trained  nurse,  —  had  taken 
from  her  a  little  of  her  strength  and 
vitality. 

It  is  hard,  when  one  is  ill  and  suffer 
ing  one's  self,  to  realize  the  extent  to 
which  this  reacts  on  those  about  us, 
especially  for  us  older  people.  I  had  a 
quick  vision  of  Margaret's  seeing  me 
walking  off  wantonly,  needlessly,  into 
the  land  of  shadows.  I  know,  of  course, 
that  when  the  day  comes,  pills  and 
trained  nurses  and  gruel  will  not  retard 
my  footsteps,  and  I  shall  very  much 
like  to  pass  through  the  series  of  minor 
illnesses  that  may  be  before  me  in  my 
own  way,  comfortably,  without  too  much 

nagging  and  without  having  my  hair- 
92 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


brushes  hidden,  or  having  to  lie  in  bed 
when  I  know  it  is  bad  for  my  back.  But 
after  all,  I  think  I  saw  on  that  morning 
that  my  annoyances  had  been  small 
compared  to  Margaret's  anxieties.  She 
threw  aside  for  the  moment  the  smiling 
"  You-will-be-better-to-morrow  "  mask 
that  she  had  consistently  assumed  from 
the  beginning  of  my  illness,  and  I  re 
alized  for  the  first  time  that  the  week 
had  been  one  where  shadowy  fears  had 
pressed  about  her,  taking  from  her  her 
gayety,  her  confidence.  Each  time  I 
had  sprung  from  my  bed  to  get  some 
thing  I  wanted,  she  had  seen  the 
shadows  about  me  ;  each  moment  of 
my  weakness  had  whispered  desolation 
to  her. 

I  thought  of  the  long  evenings  that 

she  and  Dudley  had  passed  together, 
93 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


discussing  with  the  trained  nurse  my 
shortcomings  and  my  willfulnesses ; 
and  I  saw  that  my  small  rebellions  had 
been  to  her  not  small  rebellions  at  all,  but 
willful  throwing  away  of  so  many  of 
the  days  that  it  may  be  yet  permitted 
us  to  pass  together. 

For  one  moment  I  was  almost  sorry 
that  I  had  sent  that  woman  away,  but 
that  moment  of  weakness  did  not  stay 
long,  because,  after  all,  it 's  I  who  will 
have  to  be  the  judge  of  how  to  lengthen 
out  the  span  of  those  days.  At  the  same 
time,  as  we  sat  there  together  in  silence, 
Margaret  holding  my  hand  and  I  look 
ing  at  the  anxious  lines  in  her  face,  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  take  the  pepsin 
and  the  strychnine  and  all  the  other 
things  that  they  make  such  a  fuss 
over. 

94 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


So  I  told  Margaret  when  she  implored 
(and  I  can 't  translate  to  you  her  accent 
of  anxiety) ,  "  Now  do  take  the  medicine 
the  doctor  left  for  you  ;  it  certainly  will 
strengthen  you,"  —  "I  will,  Margaret." 

But  even  then  a  flicker  of  spirit  rose 
in  me ;  for  all  of  Margaret's  and  Dud 
ley's  agonizing,  I'm  not  dead  yet, — 
very  far  from  it,  —  and  it 's  very  seldom 
that  I  get  a  good  chance  to  influence 
my  children's  lives.  So  that  is  why  I 
said  to  my  daughter  :  — 

"Margaret,  I  can  see  that  you  are 
very  anxious  about  me.  But  I  'm  equally 
anxious  about  you,  though  I  don't  pre 
sume  to  nag  you  and  make  such  a  fuss 
about  it.  I  will  take  the  tablets  and  the 
tonics  and  the  powders,  and  even  the 
horrid  things  put  up  in  gelatine  cap 
sules,  which  are  as  hard  to  swallow  as 
95 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


any  hen's  egg  in  its  shell,  if  you  will 
make  a  few  concessions  on  your  part : 
that  heavy  tailored  skirt  that  you've 
been  wearing  I  know  is  the  cause  of 
your  backache.  Will  you  promise  me 
to  put  it  aside,  for  a  while  anyway  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mother,"  Margaret  agreed. 

"  And  will  you  try  to  eat  your  meals 
more  regularly  ?  "  (For  Margaret  has 
been  doing  a  great  deal  of  outside  club 
work,  and  half  the  time  comes  home  to 
lunch  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  late,  when 
all  the  meat  is  cold  and  spoiled,  and  I 
know  that  it  will  injure  her  stomach  in 
the  long  run.) 

"  Margaret,"  I  said,  "  I  Ve  studied 
the  rules  of  health  for  a  great  many 
years,  and  as  you  are  fond  of  boasting, 
I  'm  in  pretty  good  condition  as  a  rule, 

considering  my  time  of  life  and  the 
96 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


things  I  've  been  through.  So  if  I  'm  to 
do  what  you  want  me  to,  I  think  it  is 
only  fair  that  you  should,  in  smaller 
matters,  be  guided  by  me  a  little  bit ; 
and  this  sitting  and  reading  so  far  from 
the  light  and  spoiling  your  eyes  is  a 
thing  that  has  got  to  be  put  a  stop  to,  if 
I  am  to  take  another  strychnine  tablet." 

Margaret  agreed  readily  to  all  these 
things.  It  may  seem  to  you  that  I  was 
taking  an  unfair  advantage  ;  but  I  do 
my  share  of  silent  worrying  on  my  own 
side,  and  it  seemed  to  me  only  fair 
exchange,  because  undoubtedly  it  will 
benefit  my  health  to  be  saved  these 
small  anxieties,  besides  benefiting  Mar 
garet's. 

Margaret  agreed  readily  because  I 
think  she  saw  the  reasonableness  and 

justice  of  my  remarks. 
97 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


"May  I  bring  you  tapioca  now?" 
she  asked  at  the  end  of  my  talk. 

"  No,  Margaret,"  I  replied.  "  I  am 
going  down  to  dinner  to-day,  and  I  am 
going  to  eat  some  solid  food -things 
that  I  want  to  eat,  which  I  know  will 
be  much  better  for  my  health." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    COMPENSATIONS    OF    AGE 

I  GRUMBLE  a  good  deal,  it  seems  to  me, 
about  my  children's  too  anxious  care  of 
me ;  I  make  life  seem  shorn  of  many 
of  its  pleasures, — and  so  it  is  ;  but  age 
also  clips  life  of  complications.  It  is  the 
great  simplifier. 

For  instance,  the  moment  my  eye  fell 
upon  my  new  neighbors,  I  knew  I 
wasn't  going  to  like  them.  This  may 
sound  as  though  I  am  disagreeable 
and  ill-natured,  but  I  don't  think  I  am. 
Indeed  I  have  lived  so  long  in  this  world 
that  I  feel  free  to  express  my  opinions 
without  being  afraid  of  being  misunder 
stood.  A  younger  woman  might  not  give 
out  so  frankly  what  she  thinks,  as  she 
99 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


has  her  reputation  to  make  ;  but  one 
opinion,  more  or  less,  of  my  neighbors, 
will  not  alter  my  reputation,  for  if  I  have 
proved  myself,  in  the  long  time  I  have 
stayed  in  this  world,  kindly  and  not 
hard  to  please  and  ready  to  make  al 
lowances,  I  believe  people  will  make 
allowances  for  me,  and  it  will  not  hurt 
me  one  bit  to  ease  my  mind  by  saying 
that  I  do  not  fancy  my  new  neighbors. 
I  don't  suppose  I  had  any  reason  for  it, 
for  they  seemed  very  nice  and  pleasant 
people. 

The  older  woman,  the  one  Margaret 
picked  out  as  a  companion  for  me,  was 
fastened  into  one  of  those  new-fangled 
frocks  that  have  hooks  in  every  conceiv 
able  spot  where  a  hook  ought  not  to 
be  and  none  where  they  ought  to  be. 

Not  that  this  had  anything  to  do  with 
100 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


my  liking  her,  as  I  have  plenty  of 
friends  of  my  own  age  who  enjoy  keep 
ing  up  with  the  styles  and  like  to  have 
the  dressing  hour  one  of  martyrdom.  I 
just  didn't  feel  that  these  people  and  I 
would  have  any  thing  to  talk  about,  and 
conversation  would  always  be  of  that 
rudimentary  kind  that  happens  on'  the 
outskirts  of  acquaintance. 

I  said  nothing  about  this,  however, 
and  in  a  few  days,  when  Margaret  sug 
gested  we  should  call,  "It  seems,"  said 
I,  "  rather  damp  to  me  to-day.  You  run 
over,  Margaret  dear,  so  as  to  be  nice 
and  cordial  and  leave  my  cards.  If  we 
are  in  for  a  spell  of  bad  weather,  I 
may  not  get  around  for  a  week  or  two." 

So  saying,  I  settled  myself  comfort 
ably  in  my  chair  and  told  the  maid  to 

telephone  to  my  friend  Mrs.  "Welling- 
101 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


ton  to  see  if  she  would  come  and  play 
logomachy.  I  sat  there  waiting  with 
that  most  comfortable  of  all  feelings  in 
my  heart,  —  a  feeling  that  comes  of 
having  decently  avoided  a  disagreeable 
duty.  I  looked  back  over  my  long  life 
and  thought,  of  the  many  times  I  had 
called  and  called  and  called  on  people 
I  didn't  want  to,  —  new  church  people 
who  I  thought  were  lonely;  people  who 
were  friends  of  friends  of  mine  with 
whom  I  had  no  more  in  common  than 
I  had  with  a  flagstaff. 

Before  she  went  out,  Margaret  asked, 
"Are  there  any  more  calls  you  don't 
feel  like  making?  for  I  might  as  well 
do  them  all  up,  now  that  I  am  started." 

At  that  I  made   out  a  list   of   all 
the  people  I  didn't  especially  want  to 
see  in  town.    It  was  not  a  very  large 
102 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


one,  for  I  am  fond  of  my  fellow  crea 
tures.  Though,  strictly  speaking,  my 
day  of  calling  is  over,  when  I  want  to 
see  any  one  I  go  and  see  them  and 
spend  a  good  hour  or  more  in  a  real 
talk.  I  am  no  longer  a  young  woman; 
I  am  an  elderly  woman,  and  will  soon 
be  old,  and  the  day  for  me,  thank  good 
ness,  is  past  when  I  spend  an  afternoon 
in  that  most  senseless  occupation, — 
fifteen-minute  calls,  where  the  people 
are  called  upon  according  to  neighbor 
hood,  and  not  because  any  one  feels  any 
particular  need  of  their  conversation. 

In  many  ways,  as  we  advance  in 
years,  we  return  to  the  attitude  we  had 
when  we  were  children.  If  we  grow 
old  wisely,  we  lay  aside  the  senseless 
forms  and  meaningless  conventions  of 

society  and  go  back  to  a  more  primi- 
103 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

•  • 

tive  mode  of  social  intercourse,  pick 
ing  our  friends  the  way  children  do,  — 
because  we  like  them,  —  spending  time 
enough  with  them  to  get  some  real  good 
out  of  them. 

It  was  with  joy  that  I  saw  my  daugh 
ter  depart  to  call  upon  the  Towners, 
for  this  was  the  name  of  the  new  peo 
ple.  In  this  world,  of  course  Towners 
have  to  be  called  upon,  but  oh,  glori 
ous  day!  the  time  is  past  when  it  is 
I  who  must  do  it.  If  I  have  to  forego 
some  things  I  would  like  to  do;  if  old 
age  in  the  shape  of  waning  strength 
says  to  me  often,  "  Thou  shalt  not ! " 
so  do  my  years  smile  upon  me  and  say 
to  me,  "  Thou  needst  not." 

I  have  moments  of  unhappiness  and 
rebellion,  as  I  suppose  most  older  wo 
men  have  as  old  age  creeps  on  them 
104 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


unawares  as  they  work  and  dream  and 
live;  I  have  moments  of  sorrow  that 
my  real  work  in  the  world  is  done,  and 
moments  of  sadness  that  my  children 
no  longer  come  to  me,  but  spare  me, 
not  wishing  to  trouble  me;  but  oh,  with 
what  happiness  do  I  leave  the  perform 
ing  of  some  duties  to  the  younger  gen 
eration.  Think  what  an  emancipation  it 
would  be  if  some  voice  should  cry,  — 
"  No  more  calls ! "  This  is  what  the 
voice  of  age  said  to  me,  as  I  sat  that 
afternoon  by  the  window  watching  my 
dear  daughter  ply  dutifully  forth.  Many 
years  will  have  to  pass  by  before  she 
can  sit  down  quietly  before  her  pleasant 
open  fire  and  rejoice  that  never,  never 
again  will  she  need  to  make  a  duty 
call. 

As  I  watched  Margaret  go  her  way 
105 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


on  her  round  of  calls,  I  saw  all  the 
family  of  tiresome  duties  before  me; 
not  only  calls,  but  committee  meetings 
of  one  kind  and  another.  Not  a  com 
mittee  meeting  do  I  have  to  go  to.  I 
don't  have  to  feel  like  a  beggar  getting 
money  for  the  church  organ  or  the  new 
church  carpet.  I  did  these  things  will 
ingly  and  cheerfully  in  my  time,  and 
now,  thank  goodness,  I  don't  have  to 
do  them.  I  even  make  the  confession 
that  there  are  some  times,  when  Mar 
garet  says  to  me,  "Mother,  it's  too 
rainy  for  you  to  go  to  church,"  that  I 
agree  with  her  with  a  certain  alacrity. 

Oh,  blessed  are  the  immunities  of 
age! 

This  morning  there  walked  past  my 
house  a  young  person.  She  was  pretty, 

she  was  young.  I  have  no  doubt  that  I 
106 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 

— — — — ^— — ^— — — — — — _ — __ _ 

should  have  been  an  object  of  pity  in 
her  eyes  as  I  sat  there  in  my  com 
fortable  wide  chair  in  my  comfortable 
dress,  which,  if  you  please,  is  a  waist 
and  skirt,  the  waist  hooking  in  the 
front.  This  pretty  young  person's  back 
hair  was  built  out  one  foot  behind  her 
head  with  what  aids  I  am  too  innocent 
to  pretend  to  tell  you;  her  frock  was 
of  the  kind  that  fits  with  distressing 
closeness  until  it  bursts  out  in  a  flare  of 
pleats  at  the  knees,  and  she  wore  upon 
her  head  a  prodigious  hat.  Her  type 
was  not  extreme.  I  see  young  women 
and  maidens  every  day  more  fantas 
tically  and  uncomfortably  arrayed. 

"  Oh,"  I  thought  to  myself,  "  there 's 
a  spring  in  youth,  to  be  sure,  and  a 
joyousness  in  it,  but  oh,  how  uncom 
fortable  youth  makes  itself !  " 
107 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


I  see  my  daughter  Margaret  clawing 
around  her  spinal  column,  trying  to 
hook  her  clothes  up  the  back,  and  re 
joice  that  I  am  of  an  age  where,  fash 
ion  book  or  no  fashion  book,  things  may 
yet  fasten  up  the  front.  I  don't  need  to 
wear  a  hat  that  looks  like  a  chimney 
or  a  monstrous  mushroom;  I  can  wear 
broad,  low-heeled,  cloth-topped  shoes 
while  the  styles  in  shoes  skip  around 
from  heavy  mannish  to  paper  soles  and 
pointed  toes. 

There  are  women,  of  course,  who  do 
not  take  advantage  of  the  blessed  priv 
ileges  which  age  brings  them,  but,  after 
all,  not  many  of  us.  Most  of  us  have 
sense  given  us  to  realize  that  there  are 
certain  fads  in  this  world  that  we  are 
through  with. 

So  I  confess  that  I  saw  the  little  girl 
108 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


with  the  imposing  hair  and  hat  go  her 
way  without  envying  her  her  youth. 
Would  I  not  like  to  be  young  again? 
Who  would  not  if  they  could  have 
youth  plus  the  wisdom  which  their 
years  have  given  them? 

It  may  be  that  it  is  "sour  grapes" 
that  makes  me  feel  as  I  do,  but  a  pro 
found  thankfulness  sweeps  over  me 
when  I  run  through  the  long  list  of 
things  I  need  not  do  any  more,  and  if 
I  rejoice  that  certain  distasteful  duties 
are  removed  from  me,  how  much  more 
do  I  rejoice  over  the  amusements  that 
did  not  amuse  me  that  I  no  longer 
have  to  go  to.  No  more  do  I  have  to 
attend  concerts  of  an  ultra  -  classical 
nature;  no  longer  do  I  have  to  read 
the  newest  book  if  I  do  not  choose 

to;  if  I  am  ever  bored,  it  is  not  any 
109 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


longer  by  those  things  which  are  sup 
posed  to  divert  me. 

Fancy  your  life  stripped  of  all  the 
things  that  are  tiresome  to  do,  that  are 
a  weariness  to  your  spirit.  What  does 
all  this  cry  about  the  simple  life  mean, 
—  this  turning  to  nature,  this  camp 
ing  in  Maine  woods,  this  flying  to  little 
shacks  by  the  seashore?  Not  so  much 
the  desire  for  beauty,  for  that  is  acces 
sible  to  very  many  people,  but  leisure 
to  enjoy  it,  and  attaining  this  leisure  by 
throwing  out  of  the  window  what  one 
might  call  "  the  padding  of  life."  I  do 
not  have  to  leave  my  comfortable  home 
for  an  uncomfortable,  half  -  furnished 
shanty  to  revel  in  the  beauty  of  the 
maple  tree  which  makes  a  golden  glory 
outside  my  window.  Without  effort  on 
my  part  life  has  handed  me  these  extra 
110 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


hours  in  which  to  look  around  the 
world  and  enjoy  the  beauties  of  it  with 
peace  in  my  heart,  and  it  seems  that  for 
those  who  look  upon  age  rightly,  life 
becomes  a  spacious,  roomy  place.  For 
some  the  spaciousness  means  loneliness; 
through  the  vaulted  roominess  of  the 
days  voices  echo  infrequently ;  the  wide 
vistas  of  time  are  unpeopled  and  bare; 
memories  only  walk  through,  —  shad 
owy  and  with  sad  eyes.  I  can  only 
thank  God  that  age  has  not  come  to 
me  in  such  a  guise.  For  me  and  many 
of  my  contemporaries  the  priceless  gift 
of  time  has  been  the  recompense  of  our 
having  lived  so  long  in  this  world;  and 
instead  of  our  days  being  full  of  the 
needful  but  distasteful  duties,  and  clut 
tered,  besides,  and  choked  with  the 

pleasureless  pleasurings  in  which  I  see 
111 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


those  younger  than  myself  spending 
their  days,  we  may  now  turn  and  do 
the  things  which  we  have  always 
wanted  to  do.  And  for  those  who  have 
lived  with  zest  and  vigor,  —  that  is  to 
say,  those  who  have  lived  at  all,  —  there 
is  hardly  one  who  has  not  had  some  pur 
suit  or  some  taste  which  was  crowded 
out  of  their  lives.  If  you  look  around 
the  world  you  may  see  any  number 
of  vigorous  elderly  women  doing  the 
things  they  wanted  to  do  all  their  days, 
and  doing  them  with  the  earnestness 
and  relish  of  children  at  play. 


CHAPTEK  VI 

THE    SPENDING   OF   TIME 

THERE  are  some  older  people  to  whom 
life  has  not  handed  out  so  many  vacant 
spaces,  and  whose  days  yet  remain 
crowded,  not  with  the  unavoidable  du 
ties,  but  with  those  that  others  impose 
upon  them. 

I  know  a  valiant  old  lady  of  seventy 
whose  vigorous  and  sane  presence  was 
of  such  inspiration  to  her  many  daugh 
ters  that  "  mother  "  was  on  a  perpetual 
round  of  visits  of  advice  and  consola 
tion.  As  is  the  case  with  so  dominant 
and  self-reliant  a  nature,  she  had  raised 
up  a  brood  of  fine  women,  but  women 
accustomed  to  rely  upon  her,  even  into 

middle  age.  As  happens  often  in  such 
113 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


cases,  she  first  domineered  over  them 
and  they  in  turn  ate  up  her  time  and 
her  leisure  until  she  rebelled  against 
this  tender  slavery  of  her  own  creating. 
One  day  she  arose,  saying,  "  Before  an 
other  of  these  granddaughters  of  mine 
gets  the  croup,  I  'm  going  around  the 
world ! "  —  which,  it  seems,  she  had  al 
ways  desired  to  do,  but  had  not  had  the 
time  for.  So,  with  much  dexterity,  she 
eluded  the  vigilance  of  her  loving  chil 
dren,  hopped  upon  a  boat,  and  informed 
them  by  telegram  where  she  was  go 
ing. 

"  For,"  she  told  me  by  letter,  "  I  have 
no  intention  of  viewing  the  marvels  of 
this  earth  with  a  rhinitis  pill  popped 
into  my  mouth  by  one  of  my  daughters 
every  few  minutes.  I  don't  want  to  go 

through  the  tombs  of  the   Ptolemies 
114 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


with  goloshes  on  my  feet,  as  I  know  I 
should  have  to  do  if  one  of  the  girls 
went  with  me." 

In  one's  travels  around  the  earth  one 
meets  many  elderly  people  who,  like 
this  friend  of  mine,  are  seeing  at  last 
the  sights  they  had  planned  to  see  all 
their  days ;  fulfilling  the  dreams,  often 
times,  of  a  far  remote  youth. 

Again,  it  is  some  desire  for  know 
ledge  that  we  indulge  in  in  our  old  age. 
Two  old  friends  of  mine  —  a  retired 
minister  and  his  wife  —  are  at  this  mo 
ment  pursuing  the  study  of  biology 
with  all  the  ardor  of  youth.  Through 
the  years  of  his  long  life  this  dear  man 
and  his  wife  had  looked  forward  to  the 
time  when  they  might  slake  their  curi 
osity  about  the  wonders  of  the  earth, 

and  now  they  are  doing  it  with  the  pas- 
115 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


sion  of  youth.  It  was  a  real  need  with 
them  and  a  true  desire  which  they  had 
always  between  them  kept  alive.  I  do 
not  know  any  reward  that  a  life  of  toil 
can  hold  more  precious  than  this  fulfill 
ment  of  a  lifelong  desire. 

Another  friend  of  mine  had  a  very 
full  life,  though  she  never  married. 
She  took  care  of  her  brother's  house, 
—  a  complicated  establishment  full  of 
guests ;  but  always  she  cherished  a  love 
for  the  Eomance  languages  and  read 
much  of  their  literature  in  translation; 
and  when  she  had  time,  which  was  after 
her  sixty-fifth  birthday,  she  learned 
Spanish  and  French  and  Italian. 

At  this  minute,  down  the  street  Mrs. 
Baker  is  making  rugs  and  carpets  out 
of  all  the  rags  she  has  saved  for  the 

last  thirty  years.  The  story  of  how  she 
116 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


has  conserved  these  pieces  is  an  epic, 
a  tribute  to  the  force  and  persistence 
of  the  human  will.  Her  children,  one 
and  all,  have  tried  to  make  her  throw 
away  "  all  that  rubbish."  They  have 
pointed  out  to  her  that  her  collection 
of  old  pieces  was  a  mania,  and  that  no 
thing  would  ever  come  of  it ;  also,  they 
might  be  doing  "  somebody  some  good." 
During  her  absence  her  daughters  would 
lead  commiserating  friends  to  the  attic 
and  show  them  rag-bags  bursting,  trunks 
overflowing,  bureau  drawers  yawning, 
with  the  pieces  their  mother  had  col 
lected.  Oh,  the  younger  and  older  gen 
erations  had  some  doughty  passages- 
at-arms  over  what  the  younger  women 
called  a  "  needless  and  unhygienic  ac 
cumulation." 

"  Some  day,"  Mrs.  Baker  persisted, 
117 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


"I  intend  to  make  rag  carpets  from 
them  —  when  I  have  time." 

She  has  time  now,  and,  I  am  glad  to 
say,  is  doing  what  she  always  wanted 
to.  The  making  of  rag  carpets  may  not 
have  been  a  high  goal  to  aim  at,  but 
what  matter?  The  longer  I  live,  the 
more  I  believe  it  is  the  spirit  in  which 
we  do  things  that  makes  our  acts  pleas 
ing  or  displeasing  to  a  Greater  Intel 
ligence.  Who  knows  whether  rag  car 
pets  made  with  a  cheerfulness  which  is 
in  itself  a  prayer  may  not  be  more  pleas 
ing  to  the  Lord  than  much  more  pre 
tentious  occupations  performed  sadly? 

To  many  of  us  the  moment  of  leisure 
comes  too  late ;  we  allow  the  daily  occu 
pations  of  our  business  to  crowd  upon 
us  so  in  middle  life  that,  when  old  age 

comes  upon  us,  it  finds  us  without  re- 
118 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


source.  So  it  is  with  men,  while  women 
fill  up  the  depths  of  the  spirit  with  a 
countless  reiteration  of  detail,  bank 
rupting  themselves;  leaving  themselves 
dependent  upon  the  good  will  of  others 
for  all  amusement. 

Many  of  us  have  worked  so  hard  and 
life  has  treated  us  so  ungently  that  all 
the  fair  lights  that  burned  for  us  in  the 
country  of  youth  have  been  put  out ; 
but,  thank  God!  it  is  n't  so  with  all. 
That  elusive  moment,  "when  I  have 
time,"  that  every  one  talks  about,  comes 
to  almost  all  of  us,  and  it  finds  a  certain 
number  of  us  with  a  will  to  do  what  we 
like.  But  here  with  the  things  that  we 
want  to  do,  we  often  find  ourselves  in 
the  position  of  children  who  plan  out 
tasks  that  their  little  strength  will  not 
perform.  For  ever  and  ever  we  bruise 
119 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


ourselves  against  the  limitations  of  the 
flesh.  Oh,  the  books  that  we  wish  to 
read,  for  which  our  eyes  do  not  serve  ; 
the  pleasurings  denied  us  ;  the  work  cut 
away  from  us  because  of  the  limitation 
of  our  strength,  and  the  knowledge 
that  this  limitation  must  always  increase. 
The  size  of  the  earth  over  which  one 
may  roam  shrinks  day  by  day,  until  it 
decreases  to  the  house,  —  to  one's  room, 
—  to  one's  bed  ;  and  finally  to  the  nar 
rowest  space  of  all. 

So  side  by  side  with  the  things  that 
we  can  now  do  because  we  have  more 
time  are  the  things  that  we  have  no 
strength  for  and  the  things  that  our 
children  promise  to  do  for  us  and  never 
get  around  to,  —  our  children  who  are 
so  eager  to  perform  all  sorts  of  small 

kindnesses. 

120 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


I  know  that  I  have  been  wanting  for 
three  years  to  straighten  my  attic  the 
way  I  would  like  to  see  it  done,  and 
neither  have  I  been  permitted  to  do  it, 
nor  will  my  children  do  it  for  me.  It 
is  one  of  those  things  that  has  got  to 
be  done  by  one  of  the  family  ;  no 
cleaning-woman  can  do  anything  ex 
cept  the  heavier  part  of  the  work. 
And  now,  whenever  I  go  up  and  sort 
over  a  trunk  of  letters  or  a  chest  of 
drawers,  some  one  is  sure  to  hear  me 
walking  around  up  there  and  come  after 
me,  until  what  Margaret  and  Dudley 
call  my  "  attic  face  "  is  a  joke  in  the 
family.  They  pretend  that  there  is  a 
certain  joyful  but  furtive  look  comes 
over  me  when  I  have  "  designs,"  as 
Dudley  says,  on  the  attic. 

"  That  attic,  I  hope,  will  never  get 
121 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


cleared,"  he  tells  me.  "  It  is  all  the  joy 
to  you  that  a  double  life  would  be.  It 
gives  you  the  joy  of  forbidden  fruit.  As 
long  as  it  is  n't  cleared,  you  can  sneak 
up  there  and  go  on  a  terrible  debauch ; 
of  course  you  are  generally  ill  and  miser 
able  after  it,  but  who  minds  that  when 
they  have  made  a  night  of  it  ? " 

In  this  disrespectful  way  does  my  son 
joke  me,  not  realizing  that  the  state  of 
the  attic  is  a  real  source  of  annoyance 
to  me. 

Almost  every  older  woman  has  some 
thing  equivalent  to  my  attic.  Oftentimes 
this  attic  is  a  thing  a  woman  is  strong 
enough  to  do  herself,  but  which  her 
children,  with  their  too  loving  care,  pre 
vent  her  doing.  Sometimes  little  house 
hold  duties  that  she  has  attended  to  all 

her  life  herself,  from  one  day  to  another, 
122 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


her  children  have  decided  she  isn't 
strong  enough  to  do.  Perhaps  one  time 
she  got  tired  ;  who  does  n't  ?  Young 
people  as  well  as  old  get  tired.  And 
sometimes  I  think  that  those  old  people 
are  most  to  be  envied,  after  all,  who 
keep  forever  in  the  harness  and  to  whom 
each  day  brings  its  compulsory  duties ; 
in  them  lies  the  essence  of  youth,  which, 
after  all,  I  suppose,  has  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  the  feeling  that  one  is  helping 
to  make  the  wheels  of  the  world's  work 
go  round. 

I  think  that  many  a  woman  has  had 
her  life  shortened  by  this  fretting  that 
might  have  been  avoided,  much  more 
than  it  would  have  been  by  the  fatigue 
that  doing  what  she  wished  to  would 
incur.  When  day  after  day  one  asks 

those  young  people,  upon  whom  one 
123 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


has  become  dependent  for  some  service, 
to  look  after  this  or  that,  the  chains  of 
age  weigh  heavily.  We  have  to  ask 
in  all  the  varying  tones  that  the  de 
pendent  must  use,  from  the  cajolery 
with  which  we  get  our  own  way  to  the 
futile  bursts  of  irritation,  and  in  the  end 
perhaps  resort  to  subconscious  strategy, 
lucky  at  last  if  we  can  but  accomplish 
our  purpose.  When  I  do  this  there  is  a 
feeling  deep  in  my  heart  of  how  round 
about,  how  circuitous,  are  my  acts,  how 
unlike  the  "  I "  that  once  brought  about 
the  small  things  in  the  world  that  I 
wished  to;  so  short  a  time  ago  I  could 
accomplish  in  my  life,  in  the  ordering 
of  my  household,  what  I  wished. 

The  spaces  in  our  lives  that  our  chil 
dren  have  helped  to  empty  by  making 

it  difficult  for  us  to  do  those  things 
124 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


which  they  consider  harmful  for  our 
well-being,  they  try  to  fill  up  with  their 
kindly  and  blundering  hands.  Every 
older  woman  who  lives  much  with  her 
children  knows  what  I  mean. 

Margaret  and  Dudley,  I  know,  feel 
that  I  don't  see  enough  of  women  of 
my  own  age.  Mrs.  Allen,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  town,  and  I  have  a  very  good 
time  together  whenever  we  meet,  and 
yet  it  is  quite  a  distance  —  for  although 
it  is  a  little  town  where  we  live,  it  is 
sprawled  all  along  the  Common  —  for 
us  on  our  old  legs  to  run  in  and  out, 
and  we  have  managed  to  live  half  a  life 
time  without  ever  becoming  intimate, 
notwithstanding  a  very  real  enjoyment 
we  have  in  each  other's  society. 

This  liking  Dudley  tries  to  further  as 

though  it  was  a  hothouse  plant. 
125 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"You  look  <  down,'  mother;  shan't  I 
telephone  to  Mrs.  Allen  ?  Or  let  me  run 
down  in  the  motor  and  get  her  for  you." 
Or,  "  I  'm  just  going  over  to  Lembury; 
shan't  I  drop  you  at  Mrs.  Allen's  for 
a  half -hour  ?  "  until  Mrs.  Allen  has  be 
come  to  me  the  symbol  of  "amusing 
mother." 

"When  I  see  them  at  it,  it  touches  me 
in  my  heart  and  it  touches  me  in  my 
temper  as  well.  I  don't  want  to  be 
amused;  I  don't  want  to  have  occupa 
tion  found  for  me.  If  I  have  nothing 
better  to  do  than  to  sit  with  my  hands 
folded,  then  I  prefer  to  sit;  nor  does 
conversation  like  this  affect  me  in  the 
slightest. 

Margaret  will  say  to  Dudley:  — 

"I  think  that  Mrs.  So-and-So   has 

changed  very  much  this  last  year.  She 
126 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


has  allowed  herself  to  lose  interest  in 
things." 

"Yes,"  Dudley  will  reply,  "I  think 
an  older  woman  makes  a  great  mistake 
not  to  cultivate  her  own  hobbies." 

"And  beside  that,"  Margaret  will  add, 
"keep  abreast  with  the  times.  Now 
there  is  Mrs.  Griscom,"  she  went  on  in 
reproving  tones,  "  I  see  her  out  motor 
ing  with  her  son  almost  every  day." 

Now  here  I  knew  what  they  were 
getting  to ;  they  wanted  me  to  go  out 
in  Dudley's  new  motor.  Now,  if  there 's 
anything  I  dislike  it  is  nasty,  smelly, 
jouncing,  child-grazing,  dog-smashing, 
chicken-routing  motors.  I  ride  along 
with  my  heart  in  my  mouth,  —  not 
for  my  own  life  and  limbs,  although 
those  are  uncomfortable  enough  being 

jounced  along  like  a  piece  of  corn  in  a 
127 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


popper,  which  seems  to  me  no  way  for 
a  woman  to  spend  her  few  remaining 
years  of  life;  but  it  is  for  the  people 
along  the  wayside  whom  we  almost 
crush,  —  the  trembling  horses,  the 
squawking  hens,  the  frightened  chil 
dren  that  rack  my  nerves. 

I  don't  like  motors  any  more  than  I 
like  trolley  cars,  although  I  ride  in  the 
cars  when  I  have  to  go  from  one  town 
to  another,  but  I  don't  enjoy  them  any 
more  than  I  enjoy  trains.  If  all  my 
neighbors  want  to  do  it  and  enjoy  it,  let 
them,  —  I  don't  intend  to !  But  Marga 
ret  always  had  a  mania  for  having  me 
ride ;  before  Dudley  got  the  car,  it  was 
carriages,  but  now,  under  one  pretext  or 
another,  they  try  to  get  me  to  go  mo 
toring  with  Dudley.  They  say  that  if  I 

once  get  into  the  car  I  will  get  to  like 

128 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


it,  but  I  know  that  I  shall  not.  I  shall 
not  get  to  like  it  any  more  than  I  shall 
ever  have  Mrs.  Allen  for  my  bosom 
friend. 

These  things  can't  be  forced  upon 
one;  we  will  for  ever  and  ever,  young 
or  old,  choose  our  amusement  from 
some  hidden  spring  within  ourselves, 
and  if  new  doors  are  to  be  opened  to 
us  of  enjoyment,  it  is  our  hands  that 
must  lift  the  latch,  though  we  follow 
in  the  lead  of  some  beloved  person. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

THE   LAND   OF   OLD   AGE 

I  HAVE  talked,  I  suppose,  rather  fanci 
fully  about  what  I  have  chosen  to  call 
the  Land  of  Old  Age.  It  is  because  old 
age  has  seemed  to  me  often  not  only  a 
state  of  mind,  or  a  physical  condition, 
but  a  sort  of  different  dimension,  —  an 
actual  country  where  we  who  are  older 
must  live.  Often  I  see  people  approach 
ing  its  boundaries,  withdrawing  from 
them,  ignoring  them,  and  next  I  know, 
I  come  across  a  new  citizen.  It  is  an 
invisible  country,  —  this  Land  of  Old 
Age, —  and  however  young  you  are, 
you  have  been  near  it.  I  should  count 
you  unfortunate,  indeed,  if  in  the  heat 

of  the  day  you  had  not  turned  into  its 
130 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


shady  by-paths  and  lingered  a  moment 
with  its  quiet  dwellers.  It  is  a  very 
peaceful  land;  there  is  not  much  work 
to  be  done;  duty  is  rarely  seen;  so  sel 
dom,  in  fact,  that  sometimes  those  of  us 
who  have  gone  there  to  live  for  good 
feel  that  we  have  passed  our  time  of 
usefulness,  and  have  moments  of  hot 
resentment  that  we  are  not  out  in  the 
world  doing  its  work  for  it. 

I  feel  that  way  myself  often,  and  at 
such  times  make  excursions  outside; 
always  the  gentle  hands  of  my  children 
lead  me  back  to  my  own  country.  And 
I  sometimes  feel  that  the  reason  we  re 
sist  taking  up  our  places  there  is  this 
sense  that  we  are  not  allowed  to  come 
out  when  we  wish;  that  we  are  kept 
prisoners,  not  through  our  own  weak 
nesses,  but  because  there  are  certain 
131 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


conventions  as  to  what  is  suitable  or 
unsuitable  for  us  old  people. 

But  lately  I  have  come  to  believe  that 
the  people  who  live  in  the  Land  of  Old 
Age  have  their  own  appointed  part  to 
play,  and  that  they  help  make  up  the 
sum  of  life. 

After  all,  one  need  not  dust  and 
sweep  and  make  pies  and  cake,  to  be 
of  service  to  those  we  love.  We  would 
not  wish  to  see  our  little  children  fetch 
and  carry,  and  yet  they  are  the  dearest 
things  in  the  world  to  us.  So  we  older 
people,  I  believe,  do  more  than  we  know 
for  those  we  love  when  we  sit  in  our 
own  quiet  country,  as  I  found  out  a  little 
while  ago  when  I  started  to  make  an 
excursion  into  the  world  that  works. 

The    mistake   our  younger    people 

make  is  in  regarding  age  as  a  fixed 
132 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


quantity.  They  act  on  the  firm  convic 
tion  that  you  are  older  every  day  you 
live,  whereas  age  is  as  relative  and  va 
riable  as  youth.  You  have  only  to  warm 
the  blood  with  any  emotion,  —  joy  or 
relief  from  suspense  or  patriotism  or 
pity,  —  and  the  Land  of  Old  Age  van 
ishes;  especially  when  there  is  a  great 
calamity,  the  old  people  troop  forth  as 
eager  to  lend  a  hand,  as  strong  to  do 
a  day's  work,  as  ever  they  were ;  and  I 
think  it  is  not  their  fault  that  they  so 
often  turn  their  disappointed  faces  back 
to  their  familiar  country  without  having 
taken  part  in  what  is  going  on. 

When  I  heard,  for  instance,  that  a 
little  town  which  squats  dirty  and  hard 
working  on  the  outskirts  of  our  village 
had  been  flooded  in  the  spring  freshet, 

and  that  there  were  twenty  homeless 
133 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


families  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  people 
out  of  work,  I  was  eager  to  help.  Our 
whole  town  at  once  bestirred  itself  to 
do  something,  and  I  was  glad  that  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  met  at 
our  house,  even  if  their  ways  of  doing 
things  seemed  cumbrous  to  me.  In  my 
day  when  we  gave  benefits,  we  had  no 
committees  nor  chairmen  nor  any  other 
kind  of  machinery.  One  of  the  ladies 
went  around  with  a  notebook  from 
house  to  house  and  asked  what  might 
be  expected  from  each  one,  and  her 
paper  at  the  end  of  the  day  read :  "  Mrs. 
Smith,  four  dozen  biscuits ;  Mrs.  Jones, 
two  layer-cakes,"  etc.  Mrs.  Jeremiah 
Curtis  and  Mrs.  Henry  Lessey  always 
did  the  scalloped  oysters.  (Howl  should 
enjoy  a  plate  of  scalloped  oysters  like 

that  for  my  supper  to-night !)    And  in 
134 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


this  easy  fashion  we  brought  the  thing 
about. 

But  I  was  eager,  just  the  same,  to 
join  the  ladies  assembled  in  my  par 
lors.  And  now  an  odd  thing  happened. 
I  suppose  as  one  gets  along  in  years 
one  gets  acquainted  less  readily  with 
the  new  people;  for  here  in  my  own 
village  where  I  have  lived  over  thirty 
years,  and  in  my  own  house,  I  found 
myself  an  outsider,  surrounded  by  peo 
ple  whom  I  barely  knew  by  sight.  They 
began  the  meeting  in  the  stiff,  formal 
way  I  believe  is  known  as  parliament 
ary,  but  after  a  little  while  they  lim 
bered  up  and  began  discussing  the 
affair  more  naturally,  and  I  became  in 
terested.  It  came  over  me  that  some 
thing  ought  to  be  done  right  away  for 

these  poor  creatures.   So  I  said:  — 
135 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"  Ladies,  this  party  five  days  off  is  n't 
going  to  clothe  those  blessed  children, 
or  their  fathers  or  mothers,  for  that 
matter,  who  were  driven  out  of  their 
homes  in  the  night  with  only  what  they 
had  on  them." 

"  Why,  what  a  good  idea ! "  exclaimed 
one  of  the  ladies. 

Perhaps  I  am  supersensitive,  but  it 
seemed  to  me  she  was  surprised  that  I 
at  my  age  was  capable  of  any  ideas  at 
all.  I  was  about  to  say  that  I  would 
have  a  canopy-top  called  from  the  stable 
and  make  a  house-to-house  canvass  and 
have  a  big  lot  of  things  ready  to  send  out 
by  the  evening  trolley,  when  some  one 
said :  "  I  move  that  we  appoint  an  Im 
mediate  Relief  Committee.  Can't  some 
one  ring  up  Susan  Millsborough  ?  She 's 

just  the  one  to  push  that  through." 
136 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


In  spite  of  myself  I  felt  a  little  dis 
appointed,  for  it  is  a  great  satisfaction 
to  do  things  for  people  one's  self  and 
to  do  them  in  one's  own  way.  Before  I 
spoke  I  had  seen  myself  on  the  rounds 
in  the  canopy-top,  but  now  I  suddenly 
felt  very  much  out  of  it  again.  Not 
only  were  there  faces  and  methods  of 
work  new  to  me,  but  my  own  little  idea 
was  picked  away  from  me  and  gobbled 
into  their  cumbrous  modern  machinery. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  telephoning 
back  and  forth,  and  it  was  on  my  tongue 
a  half-dozen  times  to  offer  to  go;  but 
I  realized  that  the  canopy-top  and  I, 
from  whatever  point  of  view  one  chose 
to  look  at  us,  were  not  a  committee. 

So  I  held  my  tongue — until  I  got 
interested  again.  It  was  to  be,  I  gath 
ered,  a  huge  entertainment,  with  all 
137 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


sorts  of  elaborations.  All  the  simple 
affairs,  such  as  we  would  in  former 
times  have  given  for  two  years  rolled 
into  one,  wouldn't  have  made  such  a 
great  affair.  I  who  knew  the  slender 
resources  of  our  little  town  so  well,  for 
we  are  not  a  rich  village,  found  myself 
saying,  — 

"  Won't  the  cost  of  getting  it  up  take 
away  the  greater  part  of  the  profits?  " 

"  It  will  be  such  an  advertisement  of 
the  whole  disaster,"  one  of  them  as 
sured  me.  "The  other  towns  in  the 
neighborhood,  after  our  example,  will 
feel  they  have  to  do  something  hand 


some." 


There  was  not  the  least  suggestion 
of  patronage  in  her  tone,  and  it  was 
not  due  to  her  that  I  felt  that  my  little 
remark  had  flown  so  wide  of  the  point, 

138 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


but  only  that  we  talked  across  the  gap 
Time  had  made  between  us,  she  on  the 
one  side  understanding  the  new  meth 
ods,  and  I  understanding  only  those  I 
was  used  to.  But  all  the  same,  that 
afternoon  I  stood  on  my  own  littL  ter 
ritory  and  listened  to  how  people  did 
things  in  the  world,  with  an  ever-grow 
ing  sense  of  isolation.  Many  of  the 
things  in  this  world  that  are  hard  to 
bear  are  no  one's  fault  at  all;  they  are 
so  because  the  world  is  as  it  is. 

All  the  next  day  my  daughter  Mar 
garet  bounced  in  and  out  unceasingly. 
I  tried  to  catch  her  a  dozen  times,  for 
I  wanted  so  very  much  to  do  my  some 
thing,  however  little,  for  the  distressed 
people,  —  I  have  always  been  so  used 
to  doing  my  share  in  the  world.  At  last 
I  buttonholed  Margaret. 
139 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"  Listen,  Margaret,"  I  began. 

"  Excuse  me  for  a  moment,  darling  ; 
there 's  the  telephone." 

After  a  hurried  conference,  Margaret 
pinned  on  her  hat.  I  followed  her  up. 

"Before  you  go,"  I  hastened  to  say, 
"let  me  ask  you  one  thing." 

"  I  've  only  four  minutes  to  catch  the 
four-thirty-two  trolley,"  she  answered, 
and  kissed  me  affectionately  and  dashed 
away. 

One  of  the  children  ran  after  her, 
calling,  — 

"Mamma,  may  I  —  " 

"  Ask  your  uncle,"  called  my  daugh 
ter  ;  and  her  tone  and  gesture,  as 
though  she  couldn't  stand  one  more 
thing,  made  me  see  under  what  pres 
sure  she  was  working. 

At    that    moment    my   son  Dudley 
140 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


walked  up  the  path.  I  was  planted  on  the 
steps  where  Margaret  had  left  me  when 
she  whirled  by. 

"Anything  I  can  do  ?  "  he  asked. 

He  was  hurried,  too,  but  of  all  my 
children  he  is  the  one  who  always  has 
time  for  me. 

"  All  I  want  to  know  is,  do  they  want 
me  to  make  cake  for  them,"  I  said, 
with  some  spirit,  for  I  was  tired  of 
being  put  off  like  an  importunate  child. 
I  make  an  excellent  Hartford  election- 
cake,  and  it  is  much  better  on  the  second 
or  third  day.  My  cake,  indeed,  is  famous 
among  my  children  and  grandchildren, 
and  I  thought  that  in  this  way  I  could 
give  my  mite  to  the  poor  distressed 
people. 

"  That  would  be  awfully  nice,  mo 
ther."  Dudley's  tone  was  apologetic. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"  But  they  've  already  arranged  for  the 
cake,  —  the  baker  gives  the  material  at 
wholesale  prices  and  does  the  work. 
"We  wanted  to  pay  for  his  time,  but  he 
eays  it  will  be  a  good  advertisement. 
Not  that  yours  wouldn't  be  lots  bet 
ter—" 

"I  wanted  to  do  something  for  them," 
I  said  forlornly. 

"  Why,  did  n't  you  do  enough  ?  You 
know  you've  given  more  to  the  Imme 
diate  Relief  Committee  than  you  can 
afford.  Isn't  that  enough  ?"  He  took 
my  arm.  "  Here,"  he  said, "  let  me  bring 
your  chair  into  the  shade.  It 's  so  plea 
sant  here  this  afternoon.  I  only  wish  I 
had  the  time  —  "  and  Dudley  was  off 
too. 

The  last  thing  I  wanted  was  to  sit 

quietly  in  the  shade,  for  I  am  what  the 
142 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


people  aronnd  here  call  "  a  mighty  spry 
old  lady."  Just  how  old  I  will  not  tell, 
for  it  was  a  convention  of  my  genera 
tion  that  a  woman  ought  not  to  be  a 
minute  older  than  she  could  help.  I  am 
not  old  enough  yet,  at  any  rate,  to  have 
taken  to  boasting  about  the  remarkable 
number  of  years  I  have  stayed  in  the 
world.  But  I  am  old  enough  for  my 
middle-aged  sons  and  daughters  to 
boast  for  me  about  how  active  I  am  for 
my  years,  —  and  they  boast  about  it  as 
if  the  fair  health  I  enjoy  was  some  vir 
tue  of  their  own.  Perhaps  the  good 
care  they  take  of  me  is  the  reason  for 
my  being  so  well,  but  down  in  the  bot 
tom  of  my  heart  is  the  conviction  that, 
had  I  followed  all  their  advice,  and  led 
the  packed  -  in  -  cotton  -  wool  existence 
they  have  marked  out  for  me,  and  sent 
143 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


for  the  doctor  as  often  as  they  have 
wanted  me  to,  I  should  be  a  bedridden 
old  hypochondriac  at  this  moment  in 
stead  of  being  so  ready  and  willing  to 
do  my  share  of  work. 

I  sat  down  obediently,  however,  and 
picked  up  a  magazine  that  was  lying 
near  by  ;  and  under  pretense  of  reading 
I  reviewed  the  last  two  days,  quite  dis 
passionately  and  soberly.  I  had  come 
forth  from  the  quiet  Land  of  Old  Age. 
For  a  moment,  in  the  stress  of  interest 
for  those  poor  homeless  people,  I  had 
forgotten  that  Margaret  and  her  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means  and  I  were 
not  contemporaries.  I  had  had  sugges 
tions  to  give,  and  I  had  been  ready  and 
strong  to  lend  a  hand  where  a  hand  was 
needed.  I  had  forgotten,  I  say,  that  I 

am  what  people  call  "  old,"  and  now  as 
144 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


I  eat  idle  in  the  shade  I  remembered, 
and  all  at  once  I  felt  rather  tired  and 
strangely  aloof  from  the  things  that 
were  going  on  around  me. 

Through  no  one's  fault  except  my 
own  I  had  been  thwarted  and  my  own 
ideas  taken  from  me.  My  fault  was  the 
irreparable  one  of  belonging  to  the 
generation  of  those  whose  business  it 
is  to  sit  comfortable  in  the  shade  and 
wait — who  can  say  for  what?  Just 
then  my  little  grandchild  Edith  came 
up  to  me,  and,  without  asking,  took  my 
magazine  from  my  hand  to  look  at  the 
pictures,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  those 
older  children  who  had  taken  my  work 
from  me  —  without  asking,  either  — 
had  done  it  as  serenely  unconscious 
as  Edith  was  that  I  might  want  the 

work  for  myself. 

145 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


And  was  n't  I  a  still  older  child  my 
self  ?  Need  I  sit  and  sulk  because  the 
other  children  would  n't  let  me  play  at 
their  game  V  They  could  play  it  better 
without  me,  they  did  n't  need  me, 
thought  I,  with  the  best  philosophy  in 
the  world,  —  and  all  the  time  I  wanted 
to  be  playing  with  them,  for  in  my  play 
I  would  forget  for  a  little  while  that  I 
was  n't,  after  all,  their  age.  I  think  that 
our  dear  children  who  look  after  us  so 
well  and  see  that  we  don't  tire  our 
selves,  and  scold  us  gently  when  we 
sit  in  drafts,  —  we  "  spry  old  ladies," 
—  forget,  in  the  care  of  our  ailing 
bodies,  that  it  is  better  sometimes  for 
the  body  to  be  tired,  if  the  spirit  is  n't. 
It  is  good  for  us  to  take  what  part  we 
may  in  the  affairs  of  life.  The  Land  of 

Old  Age  is  n't,  as  our  children  think, 
146 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


just  a  place  for  people  to  coddle  them 
selves  in.  When  I  got  so  far  in  my 
thought,  two  more  of  my  grandchildren 
ran  up  to  me.  They  had  been  sent  home 
from  the  town  hall.  It  seems  they  had 
been  in  the  way. 

"Well,"  thought  I,  "here  we  are, 
too  old  and  too  young.  We  can  play 
together  if  neither  of  us  can  play  with 
the  big  children." 

It  came  over  me  that  perhaps  it  was 
just  as  well  that  we  were  n't  all  of  us 
hurrying  and  working,  and  that  at  the 
day's  end  there  should  be  some  one  not 
too  tired.  Just  then  there  turned  in  at 
the  gate  a  friend  of  mine.  Though  she 
is  still  in  her  twenties,  she  and  I  are  the 
best  of  friends.  Her  pleasant  face  was 
lined  with  care,  and  she  looked  worried 
and  tired. 

147 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


"  Dear  child,  what  is  the  matter  ?  " 
I  asked. 

"It's  that  the  Daughters  of  the 
American  Revolution  and  the  Woman's 
Village  Improvement  Society  each  want 
to  decorate  the  hall,  and  they  're  quar 
reling,  and  nothing 's  getting  done," 
she  said,  and  burst  into  tears. 

I  patted  her  head  and  wiped  her  tears 
off,  and  we  made  some  iced  tea,  and  I 
sent  her  off  at  last  quite  cheered  up. 

"  I  had  to  come  dowrn  and  get  out  of 
it  for  a  minute.  It  was  so  nice  of  you 
to  be  sitting  there  so  cool  and  rested," 
she  added  enviously. 

Then  one  by  one  my  tired,  over 
worked  children  came  home  to  me. 
"Without  knowing  what  they  did,  they 
turned  to  me  for  comfort  and  for  rest, 

and  I  took  care  of  them  and  smoothed 

148 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


out  their  difficulties,  and  laughed  with 
them  and  sympathized  with  them.  They 
seemed  very  young  to  me,  my  big  chil 
dren,  and  I  realized  that  they  turned  to 
me  as  they  always  had,  and  that  I  still 
had  things  to  give  them  and  things  to 
do  for  them.  What  if  my  body  must  be 
quiet  ?  It  seemed  to  me  that  night  that 
I  gave  them  their  supper  and  put  them 
to  bed  as  I  had  done  so  many  times 
when  they  were  small,  for  there  are 
blessed  moments  in  all  mothers'  lives 
when  their  grown  children  seem  again 
little  children.  They  had  come  to  me  in 
the  quiet  land  I  live  in  to  be  rested,  as 
every  one  in  the  world  turns  to  that 
land  of  peace,  as  all  busy,  hurried  work 
ers  and  tired  mothers  turn  into  these 
still,  quiet  roads. 

There  we  sit,  we  older  men  and  wo- 
149 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


men,  waiting  for  our  children  to  come 
to  us.  They  find  us  there  ready  to  tell 
them  how  little  their  little  troubles 
mean,  for  in  our  country  the  perspec 
tives  are  long,  and  we  look  down  long 
vistas  on  the  road  of  years.  In  their 
great  troubles  we  can  say,  "  I  know,  I 
understand,"  for  we  have  worked  and 
have  seen  all  the  things  our  children 
must  see.  And  if  now  and  then  the 
world  of  work  calls  to  us,  and  if  for  a 
moment  we  like  to  pretend  that  the  de 
tails  of  the  hour  are  important,  let  us 
go  out  at  will,  and  play  at  work,  for  in 
our  hearts  we  know  that  we  live  in  the 
Land  of  Old  Age. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

GRANDMOTHERS  AND  GRANDCHILDREN 

THE  human  beings  that  are  closest  to 
the  Land  of  Old  Age  are  the  children. 
In  so  many  ways  their  limitations  are 
ours.  Margaret  has  to  apply  the  same 
"  Thou  shalt  nots  "  to  Betty  that  she 
does  to  me.  For  instance,  I  had  planned 
to  go  over  for  a  game  of  backgammon 
with  an  old  friend  of  mine,  Eliza  Storrs, 
and  had  n't  paid  much  attention  to  the 
weather ;  neither  had  my  little  grand 
daughter  Betty;  so  each  of  us  was 
making  her  preparations  briskly  when 
Margaret  nipped  us  both  in  the  bud. 
Betty  was  easy  enough  to  nip.  All 
Margaret  had  to  do  with  her  was  to  tell 
her  quite  openly  and  frankly  that  to- 
151 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


day  was  a  nasty  day,  quite  unsuitable 
for  a  little  girl  to  be  abroad  in.  It  was 
a  different  story  with  me.  I  was  a  child 
of  a  larger  growth,  headstrong,  and 
hard  to  manage,  so  my  daughter  ap 
proached  me  with  tact,  as  one  must 
children  of  my  sort.  She  opened  fire 
craftily  in  this  wise :  — 

"Wasn't  it  awful  about  poor  Mrs. 
Allen's  hip?"  said  she.  "  I  hear  she  is  n't 
getting  on  at  all."  (Mrs.  Allen  fell  the 
other  day  on  a  slippery  pavement  and 
broke  her  hip.)  "  Her  daughter  begged 
and  begged  her  to  take  a  carriage,  but 
she  wouldn't,"  my  guileful  daughter 
continued.  "  Imagine  her  feelings  when 
her  mother  was  brought  home.  They 
say  she  will  always  have  to  walk  with  a 
crutch." 

Now  a  great  many  more  people  of 
152 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


Margaret's  age  get  hurt  every  year 
than  women  of  mine,  but  I  did  n't  feel 
like  arguing  the  point. 

"  It  was  just  such  a  day.  I  suppose 
it 's  silly  of  me,  but  every  time  you  go 
out  in  bad  weather  since  then  —  "  says 
Margaret,  coming  to  the  point. 

"  Is  it  bad  underfoot?  "  I  asked. 

"  Awful ! "  Margaret  replied  fer 
vently.  "  People  fairly  skate  along." 

"  I  won't  go,  then,"  I  decided. 

I  must  say  that  while  I  see  through 
Margaret's  guile,  I  like  to  be  given  the 
semblance  of  choice,  and  so  I  suppose 
does  the  child  who  is  hard  to  manage. 

I  heard  Betty  asking  if  she  could  n't 
have  some  little  girls  to  play  with  her, 
and  Margaret  answer  that  she  doubted 
if  other  mothers  would  let  their  chil 
dren  out,  so  I  called  Betty  up  to  me. 
153 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


In  ten  minutes  we  had  both  forgotten 
the  weather  and  everything  else;  we 
might  have  been  the  same  age,  so  much 
we  enjoyed  each  other's  society. 

The  front  door  slammed,  and  out 
popped  Margaret  into  the  leg-breaking 
weather. 

"She  won't  let  us  go  out,  but  she 
goes  out  herself,  I  notice,"  observed 
Betty,  with  pessimism. 

I  did  notice,  and  I  noticed  what  Betty 
did  n't,  that  she  and  I  were  housebound 
for  exactly  the  same  reasons,  —  since 
neither  of  us  had  seemed  to  have  judg 
ment  to  stay  in  of  her  own  accord,  Mar 
garet,  being  anxious  about  our  health, 
had  kept  us  in. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  place  that 
Betty  and  I  met  on  common  ground; 
each  one  of  us  was  dependent,  each 
154 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


one  of  us  a  source  of  anxiety  to  those 
nearest  us,  each  one  of  us  ministered  to 
with  the  same  touching  devotion.  Like 
Betty,  I  had  my  moments  of  rebellion, 
and  my  efforts  for  liberty  were  as  futile 
as  hers,  —  more  futile,  indeed,  for  each 
year  that  passed  brought  with  it  new 
reasons  for  the  reasonableness  of  my 
children's  tender  tyranny.  I  suppose  it 
is  because  we  are  so  alike  that  the  sym 
pathy  between  old  people  and  little 
children  is  as  old  as  the  world.  As  I 
sat  telling  stories  to  Betty,  I  could  but 
think  how,  all  the  world  over,  there  were 
grandparents  rejoicing  in  their  grand 
children,  tending  them,  playing  with 
them,  teaching  them  the  old  baby  games 
that  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  time. 
Very  often  I  echo  in  different  words 

some  observation  of  Betty's,  —  the  ig- 
155 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


norance  of  childhood  and  the  wisdom 
of  age  touch  each  other  at  more  points 
than  one.  Many  of  the  occupations  and 
preoccupations  of  "  grown  people  "  like 
Margaret  seem  equally  profitless  to 
Betty  and  to  me.  We  are  both  so  far 
away  from  the  rush  of  events  that  the 
passions  and  ambitions  of  the  world 
trouble  neither  of  us.  I  have  forgotten 
about  them,  and  Betty  hasn't  found 
them  out,  —  we  are  on  an  equal  footing 
of  indifference.  Even  the  faults  of  the 
grandparents  and  grandchildren  are 
alike;  some  of  us  are  as  self-centred 
as  children,  and  others  of  us  have  the 
same  na'ive  egotism. 

There  is  a  certain  exquisite  flattery 
in  our  grandchildren's  company.  Betty 
loves  everything  I  do.  I  seem  to  her 

witty,  accomplished,  and  gifted.    More 
156 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


than  this,  she  treats  me  as  an  equal. 
She  is  ignorant  of  drafts;  she  is  not 
afraid  all  the  time  that  I  am  going  to 
tire  myself  out.  In  a  word,  she  does  n't 
know  that  when  she  comes  to  see  me 
she  comes  into  the  Land  of  Old  Age. 
She  does  n't  know  that  it 's  because  I 
am  old  that  I  have  all  the  time  there  is, 
while  her  mother  has  to  "  make  time  " 
for  her.  For  all  Betty  does  for  me  I 
try  to  repay  her  by  indulgences  of  all 
sorts,  —  sometimes  by  forbidden  indul 
gences.  For  these  I  get  mildly  scolded, 
but  I  keep  right  on.  I  have  yet  to  hear 
of  a  boy  who  grew  up  a  bad  man  be 
cause  of  the  little  indulgences  his  grand 
father  showered  on  him,  nor  of  one 
who  grew  up  a  dyspeptic  because  of  the 
surreptitious  cookies  his  grandmother 
gave  him.  I  am  sure  I  am  no  worse 
157 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


a  woman  because  my  grandmother 
begged  me  off  from  some  well-merited 
punishments.  So  I  spoil  my  grandchil 
dren  as  much  as  I  can,  which  is  as 
much  as  I  am  let. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  was  n't  al 
lowed  to  spoil  them  at  all.  I  hardly 
knew  my  older  grandchildren  as  babies, 
for  I  went  through,  like  so  many  other 
women  of  my  generation,  what  I  call 
"  The  Grandmother's  Tragedy." 

I  first  heard  about  it  from  Eliza 
Storrs.  How  often  of  late  years  I  have 
had  occasion  to  think  of  the  morning 
she  plumped  herself  down  in  my  rock 
ing-chair.  I  can  remember  just  how  the 
corners  of  her  pleasant  mouth  were 
drawn  down,  and  in  what  a  discour 
aged  way  she  flapped  her  fan  back  and 
forth. 

158 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"  It 's  awfully  hard  work  learning 
how  to  be  a  grandmother/'  she  com 
plained. 

"  Well,"  thought  I  complacently, "  if 
there 's  one  thing  I  shan't  have  to  learn, 
it 's  that.  People  may  have  to  learn  how 
to  be  mothers,  but  not  how  to  be  grand 
mothers." 

I  was  very  sure  of  my  ground  be 
cause  I  had  just  that  minute,  you  might 
say,  got  to  be  a  grandmother  myself; 
my  arms  were  aching  for  my  little 
grandson,  whom  I  had  never  seen,  my 
oldest  son's  first  child.  I  was  so  full  of 
the  grandmother  feeling,  so  eager  for 
sight  of  the  blessed  little  fellow,  that  I 
could  n't  believe  the  woman  of  my  age 
existed  who  was  n't  a  ready-made,  ac 
complished  grandmother. 

"It's  easy  enough  to  be  the  kind 
159 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


of  grandmother  you  think  you  ought 
to,  but  what 's  hard  is  to  be  the  kind 
of  grandmother  they  want  you  to  be," 
Eliza  explained,  flapping  her  fan 
mournfully. 

I  hadn't  the  least  idea  then  what 
Eliza  was  talking  about,  so  I  was  n't  a 
bit  sympathetic.  I  wanted,  indeed,  to 
laugh,  she  looked  so  much  like  a  fat, 
elderly  baby  herself. 

At  that  moment  a  neat  nurse  in  a  cap 
passed  the  house  pushing  a  perambula 
tor  briskly  before  her. 

"There  she  is!  That's  the  nurse!" 
Eliza  exclaimed.  "  They  call  her  a 
trained  hospital  nurse.  She  gets  twenty- 
five  dollars  a  month  and  her  washing 
done,  and  if  I  'd  had  as  big  a  family  as 
Solomon  I  could  n't  begin  to  pretend  to 

know  one  half  as  much  about  babies  as 
160 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


that  woman  thinks  she  does  who 's  never 
had  so  much  as  half  a  one !  If  I  had  my 
way,  oh,  how  quickly  I  'd  send  her  fly 
ing!" 

It  was  my  first  glimpse  of  a  condition 
of  affairs  I  did  n't  know  existed. 

Eliza  rose  to  go,  and  sent  back  to  me 
over  her  shoulder,  — 

"  Mark  my  words,  that  baby's  head 
will  be  flat  as  a  pancake  if  they  don't 
take  her  up  more !  " 

I  understood  everything  Eliza  said 
soon  enough.  In  a  few  weeks  Ellery 
and  Jane,  the  baby  and  the  nurse,  came 
home  for  a  visit.  That  was  when  I 
learned  first-hand  about  "  The  Grand 
mother's  Tragedy."  I  think  all  grand 
mothers  will  agree  that  there  is  a  cer 
tain  emotion  at  the  sight  of  your  first 

grandchild  that  is  a  little  different  from 
161 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


any  other.  Your  son  who  was  your  baby 
only  yesterday  has  a  little  son  of  his 
own. 

I  felt  as  other  grandmothers  do, — 
that  it  was  a  pretty  heavy  responsibility 
for  my  son  and  that  inexperienced  little 
thing,  his  wife,  to  undertake,  and  I 
guessed  that  they  probably  were  as  gay 
and  light-hearted  about  it  as  I  was  my 
self  before  my  own  children  showed  me 
what  a  grave  thing  it  was  to  be  a  mo 
ther. 

"Never  mind,"  thought  I,  " Pm  here, 
fortunately  enough  for  them ! "  I  was 
ready  to  pour  out  on  them  the  treasures 
of  my  own  experience.  But  more  than 
my  desire  to  help  them,  stronger  than 
any  wish  I  have  known  for  years,  was 
my  longing  to  hold  in  my  arms  my 

blessed  grandbaby,  —  it   was  so  long 
162 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


since  I  had  held  a  baby  of  my  very  own. 
Yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  seemed  almost 
a  joke  that  I  really  was  old  enough,  so 
soon,  to  have  grandchildren.  I  thought 
in  my  ignorance  that  being  a  grandmo 
ther  meant  all  the  pleasure  of  having 
children  and  none  of  the  care.  So  I 
planned  and  dreamed.  Then  came  the 
reality  and  with  it "  The  Grandmother's 
Tragedy." 

I  found  out,  as  Eliza  Storrs  found 
out,  and  as  so  many  women  of  my  gen 
eration  have  found  out,  that  I  wasn't 
to  have  anything, — neither  pleasure  nor 
responsibility.  My  empty,  expectant 
arms  were  to  remain  empty.  Jane's 
idea  and  the  nurse's  idea  of  a  grand 
mother  were  negative ;  indeed,  a  grand 
mother  was  something  to  be  guarded 

against.    There   was    no    room   for   a 
163 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


grandmother  in  the  routine  of  Koger's 
little  life.  So  I  remained  an  outsider, 
a  spectator,  and  a  spectator  who  was 
watched  to  see  that  she  didn't  make 
herself  intrusive, —  did  n't,  with  her  im 
portunate  affection,  make  an  inroad  on 
the  rules  laid  down  for  the  baby. 

I  'm  afraid  I  took  it  a  little  hard.  It  was 
such  a  disappointing  way  of  setting  out 
on  one's  career  of  grandparent,  so  dif 
ferent  from  that  I  had  looked  forward 
to  with  such  eagerness.  There  is  some 
thing  so  heartbreaking  in  feeling  full 
of  love,  and  then  having  your  affec 
tion  set  aside  gently  but  definitely  as 
something  nobody  wanted.  Besides 
that,  I  worried  about  the  baby.  How 
many  times  during  those  three  weeks 
I  echoed  Eliza  Storrs,  —  "Mark  my 

words,  that  child's  head  will  be  as  flat 
164 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


as  a  pancake."  I  longed  to  take  him  up, 
but  actually  did  n't  dare,  though  he  was 
my  own  grandchild !  While  Jane  was 
perfectly  polite  about  it,  she  was  as  ner 
vous  as  any  old  hen  when  I  was  near  the 
baby.  The  reason  she  gave  for  leaving 
him  on  his  back  hours  at  a  time  was  that 
it  made  a  child  nervous  to  be  disturbed, 
and  that  a  child,  anyway,  was  not  a 
plaything. 

"  Perhaps,"  Ellery  suggested  once, 
"  he  likes  to  be  played  with." 

"  We  should  n't  consider  what  a  child 
likes,"  Jane  remonstrated,  and  I  was 
sure  she  was  quoting  from  a  medical 
book.  "  We  should  only  think  what  is 
for  his  good !  " 

So,  though  Roger  would  crow  at  me 
in  the  most  beguiling  way,  Jane  or  the 

nurse  was  always  on  hand  to  see  that 
165 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


we  never  had   a  word  in  private  to 
gether. 

It  was  hard  work  learning  to  be  that 
kind  of  a  grandmother  ;  to  my  way  of 
thinking  it  was  being  no  grandmother 
at  all.  But  the  time  came  when  I  proved 
my  right  to  love  Koger  in  my  own  way. 
The  nurse  was  off  for  an  afternoon, 
and  the  baby  began  to  cry.  At  first  a 
little  whimper,  then  a  good  loud  roar. 
From  the  first  moment  it  was  evident 
to  me  he  had  an  attack  of  colic.  Jane 
did  n't  go  to  him  at  once,  but  continued 
to  sew  calmly.  Presently  she  moved  him 
over  on  his  side  and  gave  him  a  little 
cold  water,  but  he  kept  on  yelling,  of 
course.  Jane  got  up  and  walked  the 
floor.  Then,  before  my  very  eyes,  she 
got  down  a  book  about  babies,  and  read 

in  it  what  to  do ;  I  would  n't  have  be- 
166 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


lieved  it  if  I  had  n't  seen  it  for  myself. 
She  did  n't  find  the  right  place,  or  else 
she  could  n't  put  her  mind  on  it,  for  at 
last  she  wailed  out:  — 

"  Oh,  what  do  you  think  is  the  matter  ? 
Oh,  what  do  you  think  I  ought  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  had  better  take  him  up, 
Jane,"  I  said  gently.  I  was  very  sorry 
for  Jane  ;  her  outside  shell  of  assurance 
and  know  -  it  -  all  was,  after  all,  only  a 
mask  behind  which  a  poor,  inexperi 
enced  little  mother  lurked  trembling. 
"  Take  him  up  and  lay  him  on  his 
stomach  over  a  hot-water  bottle.  He 's 
got  a  little  attack  of  colic." 

"  Thank  God ! "  said  Jane.  "  I  thought 
he  might  be  going  to  have  a  convul 
sion!" 

She  was  pale  as  a  sheet,  so  I  did  it  for 

her.  I  whisked  him  up,  and  comforted 
167 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


him  just  as  if  it  had  been  only  yester 
day  I  had  had  my  babies  to  look  af 
ter.  Jane  watched  me  respectfully.  She 
always  lifted  Roger  warily  as  if  she 
were  afraid  he  would  break.  After  that, 
discipline  was  relaxed.  I  had  come  into 
my  own. 

Hard  as  I  thought  my  first  experi 
ence  was,  I  have  learned  since  that  it  is 
nothing  to  the  humiliation  some  grand 
mothers  have  undergone.  I  have  heard 
of  some  who  have  been  treated  as  if 
they  were  contagious  diseases,  and  by 
their  own  daughters  !  I  hope  there  are 
not  many  such  ;  it  is  too  sad  a  way  of 
being  cheated  out  of  one's  birthright. 
There  would  be  fewer  young  mothers, 
I  think,  who  mistook  colic  for  convul 
sions,  and  looked  up  in  books  what  it 

was  their  babies  were  crying  about,  if 

168 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


the  younger  generation  had  n't  such  a 
contempt  for  our  old  -  fashioned  ways. 
Germs  are  at  the  bottom  of  that  con 
tempt,  though  young  mothers  are  learn 
ing  daily  that  there  is  more  to  being  a 
mother  than  in  having  the  bottles  well 
sterilized. 

I  for  one  protest  against  the  "  Thou 
shalt  nots"  that  are  written  down  for 
grandmothers.  They  will,  of  course, 
pass  the  way  of  many  of  the  other  use 
less  "  Thou  shalt  nots."  But  what  good 
will  that  do  my  generation  ?  We  shall 
have  been  defrauded  of  some  of  our 
rights  as  grandmothers,  and  our  grand 
children  will  have  been  defrauded  with 
us.  There  are  some  things  I  hold  to  be 
the  right  of  all  children  from  the  very 
moment  they  are  born,  and  one  is  the 
right  of  being  spoiled  by  their  grand- 
169 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


parents  ;  hand  in  hand  with  that  goes 
the  right  of  a  grandmother  to  spoil 
them. 

Age  lops  off  our  interest  in  one  thing, 
then  another.  Year  by  year  absence  and 
death  thin  the  number  of  our  friends. 
Be  our  children  never  so  devoted  and 
loving,  there  always  have  been  and  there 
always  will  be  days  that  have  long  arid 
places  in  them  for  people  who  have 
traveled  far  in  the  Land  of  Old  Age. 
It  is  no  one's  fault.  It  is  a  part  of  life, 
no  more  to  be  complained  of  than  the 
loss  of  the  suppleness  of  youth.  The 
Land  of  Old  Age  has  sparsely  peopled 
districts.  Shadows  move  about  under 
the  shade  of  trees  ;  they  are  the  shadows 
of  the  people  we  used  to  love.  Some 
times  as  we  sit  dozing  in  its  tranquillity 

we  hear  sounds  of  footsteps  that  make 
170 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


our  hearts  beat ;  the  sound  of  dear  voices 
comes  to  us,  and  then  we  wake  up;  they 
are  only  the  dear  echoes  from  the  past, 
the  reflections  of  the  things  that  were. 
"We  know  that  never  this  side  of  the 
Great  Silence  shall  we  hear  them  with 
our  waking  ears. 

Then  to  us,  sitting  lonely  and  silent, 
come  the  voices  of  little  children ;  living 
children,  and  not  shadows  that  vanish 
if  we  dare  to  look  at  them  full  in  the 
face.  They  are  our  children's  children, 
and  all  at  once  the  silent  country  wakes 
up  to  life.  We  know  now  why  the  Land 
of  Old  Age  is  so  still  and  empty.  It  is 
so  that  the  children  may  find  plenty  of 
room  there  to  play.  To  me,  in  all  the 
Land  of  Old  Age  there  is  no  dearer 
sight  than  those  old  people  you  see  with 

little  children  around  them.  Sometimes 
171 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


it  is  an  old  man  taking  his  little  grand 
daughter  out  to  feed  the  hens,  or  again 
an  old  woman  sitting  happily,  a  little 
sleeping  child  in  her  arms.  Do  not  dis 
turb  her,  for  she  had  gone  back  years 
and  years,  back  to  her  own  youth,  and 
she  is  dreaming  that  she  has  her  own 
baby  in  her  arms. 

In  the  Land  of  Old  Age  how  many 
songs  are  sung  every  day  to  little  chil 
dren  by  lips  that  had  forgotten  how  to 
sing,  for,  oh,  so  many  years!  There 
comes  trooping  to  you  a  gay  little  pro 
cession  of  stories  and  games  ;  they 
stand  around  you  clamoring  to  be  told 
and  sung  and  played  for  your  grand 
children.  They  talk  about  children  being 
spoiled  nowadays, —  what  with  mechan 
ical  toys  and  all ;  I  am  sure  that  it  is 

in  the  homes  where  there  are  no  grand- 
172 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


mothers  to  cut  paper  dolls  or  teach  how 
to  make  reins  on  a  spool-and-pin  knit 
ting-machine.  My  little  grandsons  push 
spools  around  the  room,  playing  they 
are  automobiles,  instead  of  cliu-chu  cars. 
Only  last  week  I  was  called  upon  to 
make  equipment  for  so  recent  a  thing 
as  the  Spanish  War.  My  boys  fought 
the  British,  but  I  made  the  paper  hats 
of  just  the  same  pattern  for  both  gener 
ations  ;  the  swords  which  I  forged  were 
of  two  pieces  of  wood  craftily  tied  to 
gether  by  string.  My  grandfather  taught 
me  how  when  I  was  a  little  girl. 

One  day  soon  after  I  had  won  my 
right  to  be  a  grandmother,  I  was  sitting 
with  Eoger  in  my  lap,  singing  him  one 
of  the  baby  things  one  croons  without 
knowing  what  it  is. 

All  at  once  I  began  to  listen  to  my- 
173 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


self  sing,  with  a  certain  surprise,  as  if 
to  some  one  else,  and  these  were  the 
foolish  words  I  sang :  — 

"  The  craw  and  the  poosie-o ! 
The  craw  and  the  poosie-o ! 
The  muckle  cat  got  up  an  graat 
On  the  top  of  Grannie's  hoosie-o." 

I  had  n't  thought  of  it  for  years,  not 
since  I  sang  it  to  my  own  babies.  My 
mother  had  sung  it  to  me,  and  her 
mother  to  her,  because  back,  who  knows 
how  long  ago,  we  had  a  Scottish  grand 
mother.  Now  all  the  memory  of  her 
that  there  is,  is  this  old  nursery 
rhyme,  which  has  survived  mysteriously 
through  the  changing  generations.  I 
smiled  with  a  certain  triumph  to  think 
that  the  women  of  our  family  would 
sing  "  The  craw  and  the  poosie-o "  to 
their  babies  when  all  Jane's  "Thou 
shalt  nots  "  had  been  forgotten. 


CHAPTER  IX 

YOUNG   PEOPLE   AND   OLD 

THE  mothers  of  the  little  children  do 
well  to  let  them  stay  with  their  grand 
parents  while  they  will,  for  soon  enough 
they  grow  up. 

There  are  always  the  ghosts  of  little 
children  near  older  people,  which  teach 
them  to  understand  the  hearts  of  those 
other  little  children  whom  they  meet 
in  the  real  world.  The  grown-up  chil 
dren  are  so  much  harder  to  understand. 
They  fill  me  with  such  a  sense  of  igno 
rance,  for  they  know  so  many  things 
which  I  once  knew  and  have  forgotten. 
Indeed,  almost  the  whole  tissue  of  their 
lives  is  made  up  of  these  things. 

I  do  not  know  why  I  remember  my 
175 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


girlhood  so  little,  but  I  find  that  I  am 
not  alone  in  this.  When  I  pin  down  my 
contemporaries,  they  have  the  same 
lapses  of  memory  that  I  have  myself. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  the  serious  things 
of  life  overshadow  this  time;  marriage 
and  children  follow  so  closely  on  the 
heels  of  girlhood;  one  discovers  so 
soon  that  so  many  of  the  things  one 
has  learned  and  almost  all  one  has 
thought  and  dreamed  have  no  place  in 
the  real  world.  So  little,  indeed,  do  I 
remember  of  this  part  of  my  life  that 
I  sometimes  feel  as  if  I  had  been  mar 
ried  ever  since  I  was  a  child  in  short 
dresses. 

I  find  as  I  turn  over  the  pages  of  the 
past  —  and  so  many  of  them  are  oblit 
erated  or  contain  only  stray  sentences 

of  unrelated  stories  —  that  I  can  re- 
176 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


member  more  about  the  way  I  felt  when 
I  was  a  very  little  girl  than  when  I  was 
a  big  one.  Of  the  things  that  happened 
when  I  was  at  the  young-lady  age  I 
remember  so  little :  a  dress,  a  party,  a 
few  faces,  a  confession  of  some  fault 
that  I  was  afraid  to  make  to  my  mother. 
And  when  I  finally  came  to  her,  after 
losing  sleep,  she  took  what  I  had  to 
tell  her  —  and  I  don't  remember  what 
it  was  —  in  a  very  disappointing,  com 
mon-place  way. 

"  "Well,  well,"  said  she,  "  I  suppose 
every  girl  is  bound  to  make  a  fool  of 
herself  first  or  last,  and  I  ought  n't  to 
expect  you  '11  escape,  my  dear.  Let 's 
not  discuss  it  further !  " 

I  think  my  mother  prolonged  her 
life  by  refusing  to  discuss  unpleasant 

things  further. 

177 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OP 


Lately  I  have  often  run  through  these 
especial  pages  of  my  life,  because  it  is 
only  recently  that  I  have  realized  what 
a  gulf  separates  us  older  people  from 
the  younger  ones.  Perhaps  all  older 
women  do  not  feel  as  I  do,  or  perhaps 
they  do  not  think  about  it  at  all,  and  im 
agine  contentedly,  as  I  did  before  Ger 
trude  came  on  a  visit,  that  because  they 
love  young  people  they  know  all  about 
them. 

Gertrude  is  my  great-niece;  she  is 
spending  her  Easter  vacation  with  us, 
and  she  is  a  sophomore  in  college.  She 
is  pretty,  as  are  her  charming  clothes ; 
she  looks  one  straight  in  the  eyes  when 
she  talks,  —  hers  are  clear  gray  and 
have  as  much  expression  as  those  of  a 
robin;  and  though  it  is  plain  to  be  seen 
that  none  of  the  things  which  make  a 
178 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


woman  of  one  have  touched  her,  she 
has  a  calm  assurance  of  bearing  that 
comes  from  perfect  health.  Health,  in 
deed,  shines  out  of  her;  her  vitality 
seems  a  force,  and  an  almost  overpow 
ering  one.  In  her  presence  I  feel  my 
self  small  and  shrunken  of  body.  She 
is  the  kind  of  capable  modern  girl  who 
knows  how  to  make  a  parent  mind,  and 
so  compelling  a  quality  is  the  serene 
assurance  of  youth  that  I  felt,  as  I  sat 
there  beside  Eliza  Storrs,  that,  had 
Gertrude  been  my  daughter,  I  would 
never  have  dared  to  face  her  with  that 
last  year's  plumage  on  my  hat. 

My  own  children  and  I  have  grown 
up  —  I  had  almost  said  grown  old  — 
together,  and  Margaret,  while  she  may 
scold  me  about  my  hat,  will  under 
stand;  but  to  Gertrude  it  will  seem 
179 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


mere  wanton  dowdiness,  a  sign  of  age 
something  akin  to  the  losing  of  one's 
faculties.  This  is  because  we  have  no 
means  of  communication,  as  I  found 
out,  to  my  surprise,  when  Gertrude 
first  arrived. 

"  How  is  your  dear  mother  ? "  I 
asked. 

Gertrude  told  me,  and  then  said  that 
they  were  all  so  glad  at  home  that  my 
health  was  so  much  better  than  it  had 
been  the  winter  before.  I  asked  her 
next  how  she  liked  college,  and  she  re 
plied  she  found  it  "  broadening,"  and 
then  I  asked  her  what  her  studies  were. 
I  saw  a  little  shadow  of  amusement 
cross  her  face ;  and  though  she  an 
swered  me  with  polite  exactness,  I 
realized  with  chagrin  that  I  had  made 

a  mistake.   I  felt  intellectually  all  el- 

180 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


bows  and  feet,  —  they  do  not  call  them 
"  studies  "  any  more ;  young  women 
of  Gertrude's  age  speak  about  their 
"  work  "  instead. 

I  find,  as  we  grow  old,  we  often  re 
peat  the  experiences  of  our  youth.  As 
the  world  runs  from  me  and  I  become 
less  sure  of  my  ground,  I  now  and  then 
have  moments  of  extreme  embarrass 
ment  in  the  presence  of  younger  peo 
ple  — when  my  memory  slips  a  cog,  for 
instance,  or  when  I  find  I  have  repeated 
the  same  thing  twice  —  that  is  like  no 
thing  I  have  felt  since  when,  as  a  little 
girl,  I  did  things  that  made  me  long 
for  the  kindly  earth  to  open  and  swal 
low  me.  The  only  difference  is  that  now 
I  can  laugh  off  my  mortification,  and 
then  I  used  to  wash  it  away  with  tears. 

After  I  had  asked  Gertrude  about 
181 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


her  studies  and  she  had  answered,  we 
seemed  to  have  finished  definitely  and 
for  all  time  everything  we  had  to  say 
to  each  other.  "We  looked  at  each  other 
kindly,  even  with  a  certain  affection, 
but,  nevertheless,  conversation  lan 
guished  and  died. 

"  Gertrude  is  a  lovely  girl,  is  n't 
she  ? "  Margaret  said  to  me  later. 
"  And  so  responsive !  "  —  I  had  heard 
the  two  chattering  away  like  a  couple 
of  magpies. 

"Gertrude  and  I  don't  speak  the 
same  language,"  I  answered,  "  though 
we  're  both  tolerably  proficient  in  the 
English  tongue  when  we're  not  to 
gether." 

"  Not  many  young  girls  come  to  the 
house ;  perhaps  that 's  the  reason,"  sug 
gested  Margaret. 

182 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"  I  'm  sure,"  I  replied, "  I  see  a  great 
deal  of  young  people."  For,  you  see,  I 
thought  it  was  all  Gertrude's  fault. 

"  A  great  deal  of  young  people  about 
thirty,"  said  Margaret. 

As  I  thought  of  my  young  friends, 
I  found  that  Margaret  was  right;  that 
while  I  had  been  asleep  one  night  all 
my  little  girls  that  I  was  so  proud  of 
keeping  in  touch  with  had  grown  to  be 
women  "  about  thirty." 

Since  Gertrude  came  there  have  been 
plenty  of  real  young  people  around  the 
house.  Margaret  made  a  tea  for  her 
right  away,  and  I  had  a  chance  to  see 
the  young  people  of  my  town,  many 
of  whom  I  am  ready  to  take  my  oath 
were  babies  no  later  than  day  before 
yesterday,  and  I  confess  I  still  thought 

of  them  as  babies.    It  is  a  long  time 
183 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


since  I  have  recognized  all  the  girls 
who  bow  to  me  on  the  street,  for  I  am 
absent-minded,  anyway.  Now  I  am  be 
ginning  to  place  a  few  of  them.  The 
pretty  girl  with  curls  is  Laura  Dickin 
son.  I  remember  her  at  ten  as  an  ac 
tive  pair  of  dividers  careering  over  the 
earth's  surface ;  I  never  saw  a  child 
with  such  thin,  lively  legs.  The  young 
man  who  pays  Gertrude  especial  court 
is  John  Baker.  I  remember  very  well 
going  to  see  him  four  days  after  he 
was  born.  He  was  Sarah  Baker's  first 
grandchild,  and  she  was  inordinately 
proud  of  him.  After  that,  the  last  defi 
nite  recollection  I  have  of  him  is  the 
time,  when,  at  the  age  of  five,  he  broke 
my  china  jar  and  yelled  loudly  with  de 
spair  over  what  he  had  done.  As  they 

were  named  to  me  there  was  not  one  I 
184 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


did  not  recall  as  a  baby,  and  very  few 
that  I  had  n't  taken  for  their  older 
brothers  and  sisters. 

How  had  they  accomplished  the  pro 
cess  of  growing  up  so  fast,  and  where 
had  they  been  when  they  were  about 
it?  That  was  the  first  thing  that  struck 
me.  The  next  was  how  venerable  I 
seemed  to  them.  I  am,  as  I  have  had 
occasion  to  mention  before,  what  the 
people  around  here  term  a  "mighty 
spry  old  lady,"  and  noways  infirm;  but 
these  children  cannot  remember  a  day 
when  I  was  not  old;  they  do  not  go 
back  to  the  time  when  my  hair  was  not 
already  gray,  and  they  give  me  the  re 
spect  due  to  age.  No  one  need  tell  me 
that  among  well-born  young  people  the 
respect  for  the  old  is  dead.  These  dear 
children  fairly  bristle  with  respect  for 
185 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


me.  If  I  come  into  the  room  where 
they  are,  they  are  full  of  charming  little 
attentions  in  the  way  of  easy -chairs, 
cushions,  and  footstools.  Personally,  I 
dislike  soft-padded  chairs.  I  was  taught 
to  sit  upright  as  a  girl,  and  I  still  sit 
BO,  my  backbone  being  as  strong  as 
ever.  I  am  never  more  uncomfortable 
than  when  I  have  several  cushions 
tucked  about  me,  but  often  of  late 
years  I  have  had  to  sit  arranged  in 
this  modern  way  or  seem  ungracious.  If 
women  of  Margaret's  age  frequently 
force  sofa  pillows  on  me,  those  of  Ger 
trude's  can  hardly  wait  to  say  "  good- 
afternoon  "  before  they  pop  one  behind 
me;  old  ladies  and  sofa  cushions  are  in 
their  minds  inseparable. 

The  other  day  my  old  friend  Eliza 

Storrs   and  I  were  coming  home  to- 
186 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


gether  in  the  electrics  from  Standish. 
We  had  been  on  quite  a  jaunt  together; 
in  fact,  we  had  been  to  help  each  other 
buy  our  new  bonnets.  We  had  had  a 
good  time  doing  it,  and  came  home 
with  that  feeling  of  guilty  triumph  that 
sweetened  the  disapproval  which  we 
knew  was  before  us. 

"  I  suppose,"  Eliza  admitted  to  me, 
"  that  I  shall  never  hear  the  last  of  it. 
But?  she  added,  with  brisk  decision 
that  was  a  sort  of  dress  rehearsal  of 
the  tone  in  which  she  would  later  say 
the  same  thing  to  her  daughter,  —  "Trnt 
there's  no  use  talking  about  it  now. 
I  Ve  been  to  Standish  and  seen  about 
my  hat,  and  I  'm  going  again !  " 

Her  tone  had  a  triumphant  trumpet 
ing  quality  to  it.  The  truth  of  the  mat 
ter  was,  Eliza  had  merely  had  three 
187 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


new  flowers  and  some  foliage  put  in 
her  last  year's  bonnet;  it  had,  further 
more,  passed  through  the  ambiguous 
process  known  as  "  freshening  up."  For 
my  part,  while  I  had  indeed  bought  a 
new  hat,  the  trimming  on  my  old  one 
being  as  good  as  new,  I  had  used  it 
over  again.  It  had  been  more  expen 
sive  in  the  beginning  than  I  had  in 
tended  to  get;  my  daughter  Margaret 
was  with  me  when  I  got  it,  and  over- 
persuaded  me.  So  I,  by  using  the  last 
year's  trimming  and  Eliza  Storrs  her 
last  year's  hat,  had  the  feeling  deep 
down  in  our  hearts  that  we  had  out 
witted  our  wise  children,  who  are  al 
ways  trying  to  make  us  put  more  ex 
pensive  things  on  our  backs  and  heads 
than  there  is  any  need  for.  I  think  that 

older  women  often  have  the  same  guilty 

188 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


joy,  in  spending  less  on  themselves  than 
they  should,  that  young  women  do  in 
being  extravagant. 

So,  borne  up  by  the  feeling  that  is 
as  exhilarating  for  a  woman  of  seventy 
as  for  one  of  twenty-seven,  —  that  of 
having  done  something  she  should  not, 
—  Eliza  and  I  climbed  into  the  electric 
car  as  light  of  foot  as  our  years  per 
mitted.  The  car  was  full;  we  had  barely 
entered  it  when  two  young  girls,  after 
giving  each  other  a  brief  glance,  sprang 
to  their  feet  and  hustled  us  into  their 
seats.  This  kind  act  was  accomplished 
promptly  and  thoroughly,  and  I  would 
not  for  one  moment  be  so  ungracious 
as  to  give  the  impression  that  I  was 
not  grateful,  nor  would  I  for  a  moment 
undervalue  the  small  kindnesses  that 

the  young  so  often  shower  on  the  old. 
189 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


It  was  not  their  fault  that  the  laughter 
died  out  of  our  eyes,  and  that  our 
spirits  flagged,  and  that  even  the  tri 
umph  of  having  achieved  a  last  year's 
hat  seemed  less  amusing  than  it  had  a 
moment  ago,  while  our  young  friends 
chattered  as  blithely,  swaying  to  and 
fro  as  they  held  on  to  the  straps,  as 
they  had  before  they  gave  us  our 
seats. 

You  see,  Eliza  and  I  had  taken  a  lit 
tle  vacation  away  from  the  Land  of  Old 
Age,  —  for  there  is  nothing  so  rejuve 
nating  as  playing  truant,  and  our  day's 
excursion  had  been  that,  —  and  these 
young  girls  who  had  risen  so  promptly 
to  give  us  their  seats  had  led  us  back 
to  our  place  in  the  world.  We  had  for 
gotten  for  a  moment  that  we  belonged 

to  the  white-haired  company  who  have 
190 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


won  their  right  to  a  perpetual  seat  in 
the  cars,  and  however  welcome  a  seat 
may  be,  it  is  not  so  pleasant  always  to 
remember  why  it  is  our  right. 

I  sat  there  watching  them,  and  at 
last  I  asked  Eliza:  — 

"What  do  you  suppose  they  are 
talking  about  ?  " 

"Something  foolish,"  Eliza  replied, 
without  hesitation.  "  The  way  girls  go 
on  nowadays !  When  I  was  young, 
children  and  young  people  were  sup 
posed  to  let  their  elders  do  the  talk 
ing,  and  now  it 's  the  young  folks  who 
do  all  the  talking.  I  declare  I  some 
times  feel  as  if  I  never  had  a  chance 
to  speak." 

"  Oh,  come  now,  Eliza,"  said  I.  "You 
can't  tell  me  that  you  've  passed  your 

life  in  a  state  of  dumbness." 
191 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


For  Eliza  has  done  her  share  of  talk 
ing  in  this  life. 

I  have  known  Eliza  since  we  were 
schoolgirls  together,  and  I  tried  to  re 
member  any  concrete  conversation  that 
we  had,  as  girls,  in  our  endless  gossip 
ing  together,  and  I  found  I  could  n't. 

Throughout  the  ride  the  young  girls 
did  n't  stop  their  talk  for  one  moment, 
and  went  down  the  street  still  chatting, 
while  I  tried  to  piece  out  from  the 
shreds  my  memory  gave  me  the  fabric 
of  their  conversation. 

"  Eliza,"  I  said,  "  does  it  ever  make 
you  feel  old  when  girls  hop  out  of  their 
seats  in  cars  the  minute  they  clap  eyes 
on  you  ?  " 

"  Sometimes,"  Eliza  admitted.  "  But," 
she  added  with  decision, "  it  would  make 

me  feel  a  great  deal  older  if  I  had  had 
192 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


to  stand  on  my  two  feet  all  the  way 
home  from  Standish !  " 

But  while  I  might  not  wish  to  stand 
so  long,  I  would  gladly  do  without  some 
of  the  small  attentions  by  which  I  am 
fairly  snowed  under  the  moment  I  come 
among  them.  And  this  is  not  the  only 
thing  that  happens  when  I  appear.  Con 
versation  stops.  They  go  on  talking,  to 
be  sure,  but  I  know  they  are  talking 
with  me  for  an  audience,  and  that  they 
expurgate  their  talk  as  they  go  along, 
just  as  older  people's  talk  insensibly 
changes  when  a  child  of  twelve  joins 
them;  just  as  I  have  weeded  my  talk 
a  hundred  times  out  of  respect  to  the 
young,  these  dear  children  weed  their 
talk  from  respect  to  the  old.  I  am 
aware  that  they  have  a  very  vivid  idea 

of  what  I  think  the  conduct  and  con- 
193 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


versation  of  young  people  ought  to  be, 
and  as  far  as  they  can  they  instinctively 
conform  to  it  —  when  I  am  around.  It 
is  taken  for  granted  not  only  by  these 
very  young  people,  but  by  my  older 
young  friends  my  daughter's  age,  that 
by  virtue  of  my  years  I  am  a  conserva 
tive,  and  that  I  am  deeply  pained  by 
certain  phases  of  modern  life.  It  is  true 
that  I  should  not  like  to  see  a  woman 
smoke,  and  I  wish  that  young  girls  were 
less  slangy  and  noisy  on  the  street;  but 
I  realize  that  each  generation  will  have 
phases  which  seem  unlovely  to  the  older 
generation.  So,  while  I  may  have  opin 
ions  of  my  own  at  variance  with  those 
of  the  present  day,  I  am  not  as  hope 
lessly  conservative  as  I  seem  in  the 
presence  of  Gertrude  and  her  friends. 

I  would  be  glad  for  the  courage  to  tell 
194 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


them  that  I  would  rather  be  shocked 
than  have  this  well-meant  little  farce 
played  for  me,  but  this  I  shall  never 
dare,  for  I  shall  never  know  them  well 
enough. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  fault  of  us  older 
women  that  the  young  people  are  so 
careful  of  our  feelings.  It  must  be  that 
we  have  ourselves  put  so  much  dis 
tance  between  us  and  them.  There  are 
some  of  us  who  are  too  eager  to  tell 
how  well-behaved  we  were  when  we 
were  young;  who  have  too  much  to 
say  about  the  slovenly  ways  young  peo 
ple  have  of  standing  and  sitting,  and 
of  their  slangy  ways  of  speaking,  for 
us  to  meet  them  often  on  a  comfortable 
footing.  "We  older  women  have  less 
criticism  for  the  younger  ones  than 
older  women  had  formerly,  I  think.  I 
195 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


fancy  that  to-day  our  attitude  is  one 
easier  to  get  on  with.  I  don't  believe  I 
hear  so  much  about  girls  being  "  giddy  " 
as  I  used  to  when  I  was  a  young  girl.  So 
perhaps  by  the  time  Gertrude  is  an  old 
woman  the  young  people  of  her  day 
won't  be  as  afraid  of  saying  something 
she  will  disapprove  of  as  she  is.  Still, 
if  she  is  one  of  those  of  us  who  don't 
take"  everything  for  granted,  she  will 
find  the  way  back  to  her  girlhood  a 
long  one. 

One  does  n't  need  to  reach  the  Land 
of  Old  Age  to  smile  over  the  things 
that  caused  one's  despair  when  one  was 
Gertrude's  age ;  so  it  is  n't  to  be  won 
dered  at  that  the  dust  of  years  obliter 
ates  all  trace  of  the  things  we  laughed 
over  and  cried  over  so  long  ago.  And 

yet,  while  I  know  that  the  things  that 
196 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


seem  important  to  Gertrude  seem  un 
important  to  me,  and  will  be  unimpor 
tant  to  her  five  years  from  now,  by 
virtue  of  her  youth  and  health  she  can 
make  me  feel  my  years.  She  can  set 
me  wondering  about  the  girl  I  once 
was,  and  I  sometimes  have  a  vague 
shame  that  I  remember  so  little. 

When  I  look  at  the  young  girls  chat 
tering  in  the  street,  I  can  only  wonder 
about  what  they  are  talking;  I  knew 
once,  now  I  have  forgotten,  and  there 
is  nothing  that  can  make  me  remember. 
If  Gertrude  lived  here,  we  should  get 
to  be  very  good  friends,  and  in  spite 
of  the  mutual  embarrassment  we  now 
cause  each  other,  we  should  find  a  va 
riety  of  things  to  say  to  each  other, 
plenty  of  common  ground  on  which  to 
meet.  Then,  too,  every  day  Gertrude 
197 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


would  be  growing  older,  she  would  be 
coming  nearer  to  my  point  of  view,  and 
srery  soon  we  should  come  to  under 
stand  each  other,  —  and  I  should  wake 
up  to  find  that  Gertrude  was  thirty  and 
married,  with  a  couple  of  babies. 


CHAPTEE  X 

UNSPOKEN    WORDS 

As  soon  as  a  young  girl  marries  and 
turns  into  a  mother,  then  there  is  that 
in  the  hearts  of  all  of  us  older  women 
which  speaks  to  her,  for  among  the 
most  poignant  things  in  our  memories 
is  the  love  that  we  bore  our  little  chil 
dren  and  the  mistakes  we  made  in  the 
rearing  of  them. 

There  is  a  great  pathos  to  me  in  the 
young  mothers  who  try  so  earnestly  to 
do  what  is  best ;  for,  however  we  bring 
up  our  children,  we  are  sure  to  make 
irreparable  mistakes,  and  as  we  old 
people  look  back  over  the  long  road  we 
have  traveled,  we  see  that  it  has  been 

watered  by  the  needless  tears  we  have 
199 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


shed,  and  worse  still,  those  we  have 
made  our  children  shed  because  of  our 
needless  severities.  Whether  we  were 
firm  or  whether  we  were  lenient,  we 
are  sure  to  regret  the  course  we  took  ; 
for  there  is  no  mother  living  who  at 
the  end  of  her  life  would  bring  up  her 
children  over  again  in  the  same  way, 
nor  one  who  does  not  believe  in  her 
heart  that  she  could  do  better  a  second 
time. 

We  have  realized  how  futile  our  own 
theories  of  "  governing  children  "  are, 
and  that  there  is  very  little  mothers  can 
do  for  their  children  besides  trying 
humbly  to  understand  them  and  to  avoid 
injustices.  I  don't  think  it  is  possible 
for  any  mother  to  do  more,  but  it  is 
possible  to  do  a  great  deal  less.  So 

those  of  us  who  have  gotten  to  a  place 

200 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


where  certain  parental  firmnesses  seem 
tyranny,  and  certain  sorts  of  discipline 
cruelty,  would  be  glad  to  have  their 
daughters  learn  this  before  it  is  too 
late. 

I  remember  so  vividly  a  recent  strug 
gle  Margaret  had  with  Betty  that  was 
so  like  one  of  those  I  had  with  her. 
Betty  and  I  were  sitting  together  on 
the  piazza.  We  were  singing.  I  take  solid 
comfort  singing  with  Betty,  for  as  I  grow 
older  I  find  it  very  pleasant  to  have 
some  one  in  the  world  who  does  n't  no 
tice  how  thin  and  wavering  my  notes 
are,  and  who  likes  to  listen  to  my  voice, 
worn  as  it  is.  Presently  Margaret  joined 
us. 

"  Mother,"  Betty  asked,  "  may  I  go 
down  to  Annie's  house  —  " 

"  No  ;  I  can't  let  you  go  to-day," 
201 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


interrupted  Margaret ;  and  though  she 
spoke  gently,  her  answer  came  with  such 
promptness  I  knew  Betty's  question 
was  a  cue  she  had  been  waiting  for. 

"Why  not?"  came  Betty's  little 
whine— that  sad  little  "Why  not?" 
that  every  mother  of  us  knows  so  well. 

"Because  you  didn't  come  home 
when  I  told  you  to  yesterday." 

"  But  I  told  Annie  I  'd  come  —  " 

"  Well,  I  tell  you  you  can't,"  replied 
my  daughter  cheerfully. 

You  know  what  happened  then,  don't 
you  ?  There  were  tears  and  teasing. 
Margaret  was  firm.  Betty  was  persist 
ent.  Margaret  told  Betty  to  stop  crying 
and  Betty  cried  the  harder.  I  gathered 
through  her  sobs  that  there  was  to  have 
been  lemonade.  As  Margaret  still  re 
fused,  Betty  grew  defiant.  I  opened 
202 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


my  mouth  to  say  something,  and  then 
decided  not  to.  If  all  the  words,  for 
only  one  day,  which  a  mother  of  my 
generation  does  n't  say  to  her  middle- 
aged  children,  were  gathered  together, 
they  would  make  instructive  read 
ing. 

At  last  Margaret  led  Betty  away, 
saying  gently,  "  Dear,  I  only  keep  you 
in  because  I  must";  and  then  she 
ended  with  a  reproachful,  "  Oh,  why 
do  you  make  me  punish  you  ?  "  "Which 
was  her  way  of  saying  the  old  "  It 
hurts  me  more  than  it  does  you." 

Soon  Margaret  came  back  and  sat 
down  by  me.  We  could  hear  Betty 
sobbing  upstairs. 

"  The  worst  of  it  is,"  said  Margaret, 
"  she  thinks  I'm  unjust." 

We  rocked  back  and  forth,  and  for 
203 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


a  while  neither  of  us  spoke.  Little 
wandering  airs  blew  the  long  trailing 
vine  of  the  creeper  to  and  fro.  We 
presented  to  the  passers-by  the  same 
spectacle  of  peace  that  Betty  and  I 
had  a  few  moments  before.  But  we 
two  knew  how  changed  things  were, 
for  the  only  sound  in  the  world  that  we 
heard  was  that  persistent,  angry  sob 
bing  upstairs.  I  knew  that  Margaret's 
heart  was  wrung  with  it,  and  I  suf 
fered  with  her,  for  Margaret  is  my 
baby,  and  very  mercifully  we  cannot 
suffer  for  our  grandchildren's  tears,  or 
any  other  tears,  for  that  matter,  as  we 
do  for  those  of  our  own  children. 

Besides,  while  I  was  sorry  for  Betty, 

—  and  I  will  tell  you  privately  that  my 

sympathies  were  with  her,   though  I 

wouldn't  have  confessed  it  to  Marga- 

204 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ret,  —  I  was  glad  to  see  the  little  thing 
show  so  much  spirit.  She  was  protest 
ing  with  all  her  strength  against  what 
seemed  to  her  injustice  and  the  abuse 
of  power; — and  you  can  feel  these 
things  with  as  great  indignation  as  any 
one,  even  though  you  are  not  old 
enough  to  call  them  by  their  names. 
And  so,  though  I  hate  to  hear  a  child 
cry,  if  it  had  n't  been  for  Margaret's 
distressed  face,  I  should  have  had  a 
certain  satisfaction  in  hearing  Betty's 
indignant  roars. 

As  a  baby  Betty  was  too  good.  Mar 
garet  brought  her  up  in  the  modern, 
cast-iron,  systematic  way,  and  her  sub 
dued  whimpers  of  useless  protest  went 
to  my  heart;  I  used  to  find  myself  wish 
ing  she  would  have  a  good  old-fash 
ioned  fit  of  crying,  with  yells  that  one 
205 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


could  hear  across  the  street.  So  it  was 
a  relief,  as  Betty  grew  older,  to  have 
her  show  a  normal  amount  of  strong 
will,  although  Margaret  has  been  as  per 
plexed  as  if  the  nursery  clock  had  up 
and  defied  her.  I  have  never  dared  tell 
Margaret  how  I  felt  about  this,  for 
there  is  nothing  that  irritates  a  mother 
of  the  present  generation  more  than  to 
have  her  own  mother  give  her  advice 
concerning  the  rearing  of  children, 
however  much  experience  she  may  have 
had.  Like  most  grandmothers  of  to-day, 
I  have  wisely  held  my  tongue,  though 
sometimes  it  has  been  hard  work  not  to 
speak. 

Margaret  was    learning  that  while 

you  may  make  rules  for  a  baby,  there 

is  no  set  of  rules  made  by  man  that 

will  apply  to  a  child  of  six,  for  Betty 

206 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


continued  to  sob  defiantly.  At  last 
Margaret  said :  — 

"  I  have  to  make  her  mind,  you 
know." 

I  nodded. 

"  She  must  learn  to  keep  her  prom 
ises." 

"Of  course,"  I  assented.  Poor  girl, 
I  knew  she  was  making  apologies  to 
herself  for  causing  Betty  unhappiness. 

"  If  I  had  known  she  cared  so 
much  —  " 

I  nodded  again.  I  knew  so  well  what 
she  felt.  I  also  knew  what  I  would  do 
if  I  were  in  her  place ;  because  one  is  a 
mother  is  no  reason  why  one  should  n't 
retire  gracefully  from  a  false  position. 

"  But  now  I  can't,  of  course  —  "  she 
concluded  firmly. 

Again   I   outwardly   agreed,  —  this 

207 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


is  one  of  the  arts  one  acquires  with 
years,  —  but  what  I  wanted  to  say 
was:  — 

"Why  not?  "Why  can't  you  give 
in?" 

One  of  the  tenets  of  the  governing 
of  children  is  that  when  you  have  made 
a  mistake,  have  given  a  too  heavy  pun 
ishment  or  imposed  a  command  that  is 
more  distasteful  than  you  dreamed  it 
would  be,  you  must  persist  in  the  mat 
ter  to  the  end.  We  deal  this  way  with 
our  children,  little  and  big,  and  unrea 
sonable  obstinacy  is  called  "being 
firm."  Why  we  feel  we  must  act  this 
way,  I  don't  know.  I  have  never  known, 
even  when  I  was  most  "  firm  "  myself, 
and  I  don't  believe  any  one  else  does. 
I  'm  sure  Margaret  did  n't.  We  were 

silent  again. 

208 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"  If  one  could  only  know  what  one 
ought  to  do.  Oh,  it's  so  hard  to  know 
what 's  right !  "  sighed  my  poor  daugh 
ter  at  last. 

In  the  past  half -hour  she  had  gone 
over  the  weary  path  every  mother  must 
travel  so  often.  We  mete  out  to  our 
children  what  seems  like  justice,  but 
justice  turns  its  back  on  us  and  leaves  us 
stranded  with  a  child  who  is  crying  its 
eyes  out  because  it  is  unjustly  treated. 
As  Margaret  said,  —  "  It  is  so  hard  to 
know  what  is  right." 

So  old  women  who  see  their  little 
grandchildren  playing  about  them  can 
not  help  but  think  of  their  own  lost 
babies.  Out  of  the  past  our  little  chil 
dren  look  at  us,  and  as  our  eyes  meet 
theirs  we  falter:  — 

"My  child,  I  did  the  best  I  knew." 
209 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"  Yes,  mother."  —  Then,  "  Mother, 
do  you  remember  the  time  you  laughed 
at  me,  and  because  I  got  angry  you 
punished  me?" 

You  say  meekly :  — 

"  I  was  rude  that  time,  and  then  un 
just,  dear." 

"  Mother,  do  you  remember  —  " 

But  you  can't  bear  to  listen.  You 
know  how  many  times  you  didn't  do 
your  best;  the  times  you  were  gentle 
because  you  were  too  cowardly  to 
fight;  the  times  when  you  punished 
without  understanding;  the  times  when 
you  imposed  too  heavy  penalties  for 
childish  faults  —  for,  after  all,  you 
were  no  better  mother  than  you  were 
woman;  and  so  you  change  your  boast 
of  having  done  your  best  to:  — 

"My   child,  I  loved  you  dearly  al- 
210 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ways  —  through  your  mistakes  and 
through  mine." 

That  is  the  most  that  any  mother  of 
us  can  say.  As  we  grow  old,  we  are 
very  apt  to  return  in  spirit  to  the  days 
when  our  children  were  our  very  own, 
and  wonder  we  did  n't  treasure  them 
more.  We  find  out,  as  we  get  along  in 
years,  that  we  could  have  been  just  as 
good  mothers  with  fewer  tears  shed. 

I  cannot  bear  to  think  how  I  made 
Margaret  and  Helen  sleep  on  little 
hard  nubbins  of  curl-papers  so  they 
might  have  fluffy  curls  the  next  day,— 
curls  were  the  fashion  then,  and  my 
children  had  hair  as  straight  as  a  string. 
I  hate  to  remember  how  I  forced  them 
to  eat  the  things  they  didn't  want  to. 
I  had  a  long  battle  with  Helen  over 

soft-boiled  eggs;  she   would   not  eat 
211 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


them.  No  one  was  benefited  by  my 
persistence,  nor  could  possibly  have 
been,  whichever  way  the  battle  came 
out ;  it  was  of  no  importance  either  way ; 
but  I  made  the  whole  household  un 
comfortable  with  the  conflict.  I  didn't 
believe,  in  those  days,  in  "  humoring 
children  about  their  food."  Dear  me! 
How  many  needless  tears  I  made  that 
child  shed,  and  how  unhappy  I  was 
over  it!  I  thought  eggs  were  for 
Helen's  good,  and  I  was  bound  she 
should  eat  them.  I  am  glad  to  remem 
ber  that  in  the  end  she  won,  and  I  can 
only  look  back  and  wonder  at  myself 
for  my  foolish  persistence. 

I  sometimes  wake  up  in  the  night 
and  think  over  some  of  the  little  un- 
kindnesses  I  did  Margaret,  or  some 

coveted  pleasure  I  denied  my  children 
212 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


because  it  was  too  much  trouble  to  let 
them  do  as  they  wanted,  and  I  have 
the  same  bitter  regret  over  these  things, 
small  though  they  seemed  at  the  time, 
that  I  might  have  had  if  I  had  lost  my 
babies  through  death  instead  of  losing 
them  only  by  having  them  grow  up 
into  men  and  women.  Every  older 
woman  has  a  sad  little  collection  of 
such  memories.  They  are  among  the 
few  sad  things  one  carries  with  one  to 
the  end  of  life,  for  age  does  not  make 
us  forget  our  injustices  towards  our 
little  children.  We  remember  them  al 
ways,  and  time,  instead  of  softening 
them,  makes  them  grow  worse.  Inci 
dents  that  in  youth  seemed  of  little  im 
portance  look  very  much  like  cruelties 
when  we  look  at  them  from  the  Land 

of  Old  Age. 

213 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


So  I  was  glad  when  Margaret  could 
stand  it  no  longer  and  went  upstairs  to 
Betty.  As  she  went  into  the  room,  the 
child  burst  into  a  fresh  storm  of  tears. 
Margaret  tried  tenderly  to  calm  her  ; 
but  it  was  freedom  or  nothing  for  Betty. 

So  Margaret  said  things  like  :  "  You 
know  you  never  get  things  by  crying 
for  them.  —  Betty  !  If  you  speak  so  to 
me  I  shall  have  to  punish  you  severely !  " 

She  came  downstairs  again  with  a 
firm  line  around  her  mouth.  I  knew  just 
how  she  felt.  She  had  gone  into  battle, 
and  she  intended  to  fight  it  out  to  the 
end,  —  whether  it  was  good  for  Betty 
or  not.  I  looked  at  Margaret  and  I 
felt  that  time  had  gone  backward,  and 
that  Margaret  was  myself  and  Betty 
one  of  my  own  children,  while  I  myself 

was  some  invisible  outsider  watching 
214 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


the  same  old  conflict  repeat  itself. 
Most  older  women,  as  they  watch  their 
grown-up  children,  have  this  almost 
uncanny  feeling  of  living  over  again 
their  own  mistakes  and  blunders.  At 
such  times  one  cannot  help  an  obscure 
feeling  of  responsibility,  as  if  somehow 
it  were  one's  own  fault,  so  much  are 
your  daughter's  mistakes  your  very 
own  ;  at  such  times  I  cannot  keep  from 
trying  to  help,  even  though  I  know  it 
is  unwise,  so  I  had  to  say  at  last :  — 

"  Don't  you  think  you  are  making  a 
great  deal  out  of  a  small  matter  ? " 

It  was  such  a  miserable  way  of  wast 
ing  a  bit  of  one's  childhood  and  youth. 

"  Disobedience  is  n't  a  small  matter," 
replied  Margaret  shortly. 

"  Carelessness  is,"  I  suggested. 

"  She 's    a    very    obstinate    child ! " 
215 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


Margaret  asserted.  By  this  time  she 
had  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  sense  of  injustice  that  made  Betty 
obstinate. 

Then,  as  I  started  to  say  something 
more  :  — 

"  Darling,"  Margaret  interrupted  with 
awful  patience,  "  I  've  got  to  fight  this 
out  myself.  You're  only  making  it 
harder  for  me." 

I  had  it  on  my  lips  to  say  : "  It 
would  be  better  for  you  if  you  allowed 
your  mother  to  make  a  suggestion  now 
and  then  !  "  For  no  one  likes  to  be 
asked  to  hold  one's  tongue,  however 
politely,  and  above  all  by  one's  own 
child.  But  as  I  looked  at  Margaret's 
careworn  young  face,  and  saw  her  plod 
ding  along  the  iron  path  she  called 

duty,  —  in  this   case,  as   in  so   many 
216 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


others,  a  path  which  led  nowhere, — 
my  little  flash  of  impatience  died. 

But  my  spirit  cried  out  to  her  though 
my  lips  did  n't  speak :  — 

"Oh,  my  dear,  it's  no  matter  at  all! 
Don't,  don't  feel  so  about  it!  " 

Then  I  went  away,  leaving  Margaret 
making  her  tragic  mountain  out  of 
Betty's  little  molehill  of  carelessness  ; 
remembering  in  my  young  days  how 
warmly  I  sympathized  with  a  friend 
of  mine  whose  mother  always  interfered 
in  the  discipline  of  her  little  grandson. 
Whatever  he  had  done,  "  How  happy 
he  was  before  you  disturbed  him ! "  she 
would  say,  reproachfully. 

Now  I  understand.  There  are  so 
many  sorrows  and  cares  which  we 
must  inevitably  meet  as  we  journey 

toward  age,  and  so  many  perplexing 
217 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


moments  in  life  which  we  cannot  avoid, 
that  we  want,  oh,  so  much,  that  our 
children  might  at  least  be  spared  and 
spare  themselves  the  unnecessary  wor 
ries.  It  is  the  useless  mistakes  and  need 
less  suffering  each  generation  under 
goes  that  we  of  the  older  protest  against, 
and  for  which  we  now  and  then  break 
silence,  only  to  learn  again  the  bitter 
lesson  of  our  uselessness. 


CHAPTEK  XI 

THE  ISOLATED  GENERATION 

I  COULD  N'T  help  Margaret  that  day  in 
that  one  little  thing  any  more  than  I 
have  been  able  to  help  my  children  in 
the  greater  crises  of  life.  I  could  n't 
even  imagine  I  was  helping  her;  and 
this  is  one  of  the  bitterest  things  we 
mothers  have  to  bear  when  we  get  old. 
We  have  learned  then  that  we  can't 
help  our  children  to  lead  their  lives 
one  bit  better.  There  is  not  one  single 
little  stone  we  can  clear  from  before 
their  feet,  be  our  old  fingers  ever  so 
willing.  With  yearning  hearts  we  see 
them  making  the  mistakes  we  could 
teach  them  to  avoid  if  only  they  would 
listen.  We  see  them  going  through  one 
219 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


experience  after  another,  —  stumbling 
here;  again  hurting  themselves  against 
the  same  corner  you  hurt  yourself 
against  so  long  ago;  repeating  all  the 
world-worn  mistakes,  while  we  elders 
watch  anxiously  and  may  not  even  cry 
out,  —  "  Take  care !  "  Our  sons  repeat 
the  follies  of  their  fathers;  our  daugh 
ters  make  over  again  all  the  mistakes 
of  their  mothers.  It  is  very  hard  to  sit 
in  silence  when  you  see  them  doing  all 
the  things  that  you  did  and  then  so 
painfully  learned  better.  We  feel  that 
we  could  so  easily  point  to  the  fair 
open  road  if  our  children  would  let  us, 
but  we  are  as  useless  to  them  as  guide- 
posts  to  the  blind.  We  must  watch  our 
children  lose  themselves  in  the  tangle 
whose  miseries  we  know  so  well,  and 
see  them  at  last,  after  long  years  of 
220 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


wandering,  find  their  way  back  home, 
heart-sore  and  worn ;  —  and  all  the  time 
we  can't  help  thinking  it  all  needn't 
have  been.  That,  to  us  older  mothers, 
is  the  heart-rending  part  of  it.  Instead 
of  helping,  you  must  sit  quiet  and  fold 
your  hands,  knowing  that  if  you  did 
speak  they  wouldn't  hear  you.  Your 
children,  however  dearly  they  love  you, 
will  think  you  say  what  you  do  only 
because  you  are  old  and  have  forgot 
ten,  and  therefore  you  cannot  possibly 
understand  life  as  they  see  and  live  it. 
If  you  run  after  your  children  crying, 
"Oh,  my  child,  don't  do  this,"  they 
won't  listen  to  you,  or  if  they  do  they 
smile  at  you  as  if  you  were  a  child. 
They  are  so  sure,  these  young  people, 
they  know  more  about  life  than  you 

do!   Or  it  may  very  well  be  that  in- 
221 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


stead  of  smiling,  they  have  hard  work 
not  to  show  you  how  impatient  they  are 
that  you  have  interfered  in  something 
you  can't  know  about. 

The  right  of  free  speech  with  our 
children  is  one  of  the  pleasures  of  life 
which  age  often  takes  from  us.  "When 
they  are  young  they  listen,  —  they  have 
to  then,  even  if  they  go  away  and  for 
get;  but  as  they  get  older,  they  don't 
often  let  us  have  the  illusion  that  we 
are  listened  to.  I  have  even  known 
some  mothers  who  were  not  allowed  to 
talk  at  all  about  their  children's  in 
terests. 

I  have  never  understood  the  watch 
ful  irritation  with  which  our  grown 
children  meet  our  suggestions  concern 
ing  their  affairs,  for  these  are  the 

things  that  lie  nearest  our  hearts.  Are 
222 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


they  afraid,  I  wonder,  that  we  will  for 
get  they  are  grown  up?  I  grant  it 
sometimes  is  hard  to  act  as  if  one  real 
ized  it. 

However  this  may  be,  there  are  very 
few  grown  people  who  can  bear  advice 
from  their  own  mothers,  even  though 
they  listen  patiently  to  all  the  rest  of 
the  world.  I  remember  I  had  the  same 
curious  intolerance  for  my  mother's  ad 
vice,  and  now  I  am  at  a  loss  to  account 
for  my  impatience.  Did  I  fancy,  I  won 
der,  that  my  problems  were  so  differ 
ent  from  those  she  had  solved  during 
her  long  life? 

There  are,  after  all,  few  mothers  who 
have  grown  old  in  the  service  of  their 
children  who  have  not  some  little  wis 
dom  ready  to  give.  Some  of  us  have 
learned  a  short  road  to  peace;  all  of 
223 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


us  have  learned  something  that  would 
make  life  easier  for  the  children  we 
love,  but  out  of  the  fullness  of  our 
knowledge  and  experience  we  can  give 
away  not  so  much  as  a  crumb.  That 
evening  I  almost  envied  Margaret  her 
trying  afternoon;  she  believed,  for  the 
moment  anyway,  that  she  was  doing 
her  Betty  good. 

There  is  something  very  touching  in 
the  unreasonable  expectation  each  gen 
eration  has  for  its  children.  Obedience, 
cheerfulness,  self-control,  punctuality, 
are  only  a  few  of  the  virtues  every  young 
mother  starts  out  by  expecting  of  her 
babies.  It  only  shows  the  serene  self- 
confidence  the  young  have  in  making 
the  next  generation  better  than  the  last. 
For,  mind  you,  every  mother  expects 

to  do  this  herself,  and  it's   a    happy 
224 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


time  when  you  still  have  the  illusion  of 
power  and  still  believe  you  can  play 
Providence  for  your  children,  that  you 
can  bring  them  up  very  much  as  you 
choose  ;  when  you  still  feel  that  every 
thing  depends  on  you,  and  that  with 
your  love  for  them  you  will  be  able  to 
defend  them,  not  only  from  the  world 
but  from  themselves.  And  so  for  a  very 
little  while  you  can.  Young  mothers  in 
their  tender  ignorance  imagine  that 
this  will  always  be  so. 

But  very  soon  your  children  slip  from 
between  your  fingers.  They  develop 
new  traits  that  you  don't  understand  and 
others  you  understand  only  too  well, 
for  like  weeds  your  own  faults  come  up 
and  refuse  to  be  rooted  out,  and  you  lie 
awake  nights  trying  "  to  know  what  is 

right,"  still  thinking  that  your  child's 
225 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


welfare  is  in  your  own  hand,  trying 
with  your  own  little  strength  to  combat 
faults  that  are  as  old  as  your  race,  that 
are  part  of  you  and  your  mother  and 
her  mother  before  you,  and  will  be  part 
of  your  children's  children.  I  see  my 
daughters  going  valiantly  to  work  at 
this  hopeless  task,  high  in  courage,  full 
of  confidence  that  their  children  shall 
be  saved  anyway.  As  they  bring  their 
children  up,  they  often  talk  to  me  about 
their  own  childhood,  —  and  very  ten 
derly  point  out  the  mistakes  I  made 
with  them.  I  smile  one  of  those  inward 
smiles  age  knows  so  well,  as  I  gather 
from  their  accent,  more  than  from  any 
thing  they  say,  that  they  hope  to  avoid 
all  my  errors  ;  and  indeed  that  they 
think  they  have  avoided  a  good  many 

already* 

226 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


I  let  them  talk.  The  last  time  Henry 
was  on  a  visit  we  talked  of  old  times 
and  old  methods,  and  especially  of  the 
desultory  education  I  gave  Margaret. 
Henry  is  doing  better  in  this  respect, 
and  my  older  granddaughters  are  on 
the  road  to  becoming  very  learned 
young  ladies.  I  only  hope  Henry  is 
taking  as  much  pains  to  make  his  girls 
stand  up  straight  as  I  did  with  her. 
While  we  compared  new  educational 
methods  with  the  faulty  old  ones,  I 
could  n't  help  saying  to  my  daughter  : 
"  All  I  hope,  dear,  is  that  when  you  Ye 
my  age  Jou  will  have  as  devoted  a  set 
of  children." 

For  when  your  children  have  dis 
proved  all  your  theories  ;  when  none  of 
your  sons  have  taken  up  the  professions 
you  tried  so  hard  to  have  them  ;  when 
227 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


they  have  consulted  their  own  wills  in 
everything  in  life,  their  affection  is  the 
great  recompense.  If  our  children  really 
love  us  and  show  us  that  they  do,  I 
think  we  may  count  that  we  have  won 
in  the  game  of  life,  and  I  would  be  glad 
to  have  my  children  realize  this,  and 
have  it  help  them  over  the  discourage 
ment  of  those  years  after  their  children 
have  apparently  slipped  from  them  al 
together. 

When  I  was  a  young  mother  I  believed, 
too,  that  I  could  be  a  Providence  for 
my  children.  I  believed  they  had  been 
given  me  to  mould  as  I  would,  and  the 
only  limit  of  the  influence  I  would  have 
was  the  limit  of  my  own  strength  and 
love.  Then  there  came  a  time  when  I 
realized  that  every  child  on  the  street 

my  child  stopped  to  talk  with  had  its 

228 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


share  in  bringing  up  my  sons  and 
daughters.  One  week  in  school  was 
enough  to  upset  all  the  training  of  years. 
They  learned  faster  from  their  friends, 
and  more  willingly,  than  ever  they  did 
from  me,  and  it  seemed  to  me  then  that 
they  learned  the  things  they  ought  n't 
to  quickest  of  all.  My  well-brought-up 
little  boys  came  from  play  talking  loudly, 
making  faces,  play  ing  the  fool.  Margaret 
would  come  home  from  a  visit  with  a 
trunkful  of  affectations  and  an  assort 
ment  of  silly  ideas,  —  how  silly  I  knew 
very  well,  for  I  had  had  those  same 
ideas  and  thrown  them  aside  myself  ; 
why  I  didn't  get  comfort  out  of  the 
fact  that  I  had  outgrown  these  very 
things,  and  that  they,  too,  would  in 
time  inevitably  outgrow  them,  I  don't 

know.  It's   a  bad  moment  when  one 
229 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


realizes  that  the  most  shallow  boy  and 
girl  can  have  an  influence  over  your 
children  greater  than  your  own,  and 
that  some  thoughtless  ridicule  from 
any  one  your  sons  admire  is  able  to 
undo  all  your  patient  work.  It  was  when 
I  saw  these  things  that  I  began  to  see 
that  my  place  in  my  children's  lives 
must  be  very  much  less  than  I  had  first 
supposed,  but  I  only  redoubled  my  ef 
forts.  By  that  time  I  was  past  the  place 
when  commands  and  punishments  were 
very  much  used.  I  used  all  my  tact 
and  affection  and  diplomacy  to  make 
my  children  what  I  wanted  them. 

As  they  grew  older  still,  I  found  my 
ideals  of  what  I  wanted  them  modified 
and  changed  by  what  they  were.  How 
much  I  am  responsible  for  what  they 

are  to-day  I  am  at  a  loss  to  decide,  but 
230 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


I  do  know  that  the  boy  next  door  has 
always  had  a  more  direct  and  appar 
ently  a  stronger  influence  than  I  ever 
had. 

However  philosophical  I  might  be, 
however  glibly  I  talked  to  myself  about 
"  heredity  and  environment,"  I  felt 
deep  down  in  my  heart  that  I  was  re 
sponsible,  and  I  alone,  for  what  my 
children  were.  How  many  hours  I  have 
spent  —  yes,  and  days  and  months  — 
in  wondering  just  how  I  had  failed.  I 
felt  that  I  was  responsible  for  every 
one  of  their  faults,  that  with  more  wis 
dom  and  more  courage  and  more  pa 
tience  everything  might  have  been  dif 
ferent. 

I  have  always  envied  those  women 
who  can  say,  "  Anna  gets  her  obstinacy 

from  her  father's  family,"  or,  "  George 
231 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


has  the  Crawford  temper";  but  per 
haps  they  too  feel,  down  deep  in  their 
hearts,  that  they  are  somehow  to  blame 
for  whatever  is  wrong.  I  was  already 
an  old  woman  before  I  was  able  to  free 
myself  of  my  part  of  the  burden  of  re 
sponsibility,  for  in  the  end  I  realized 
that,  after  all,  I  could  n't  hold  myself 
accountable  for  the  things  that  hap 
pened  when  they  were  away  from  me 
altogether.  But  always  the  torturing 
question  remains  with  us  mothers,  "If 
I  had  done  differently,  could  I  have 
saved  my  daughter  this  unhappiness? 
If  I  had  been  firmer,  could  n't  I  have 
helped  my  son  more?  " 

It  makes  no  difference  what  good 
children  you  have  or  how  well  they  have 
"turned  out";  mothers  still  ask  them 
selves  these  questions,  so  heavily  do  the 
232 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


sins  of  their  children  weigh  on  them, 
even  when  they  are  not  sins  at  all.  I 
have  always  wondered  why  nothing 
has  ever  been  said  about  the  sins  of 
the  children  being  visited  on  the  par 
ents,  for  if  our  sins  are  visited  on  our 
children  theirs  are  doubly  hard  for  us 
to  bear.  After  they  have  forgotten  them 
we  still  remember,  for  we  wonder  al 
ways  if  we  might  not  have  prevented 
them  by  greater  wisdom. 

As  one  advances  farther  into  the 
Land  of  Old  Age,  one  sees  more  and 
more  how  isolated  each  generation  is 
from  the  other.  We  begin,  like  Marga 
ret,  playing  Providence  to  our  children. 
"We  end,  like  myself,  a  spectator  at  the 
drama  of  our  children's  lives.  You  will 
not  be  able  to  turn  the  tragedy  into  a 

comedy.  You  can  only  watch  it,  breath- 
233 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


less,  no  more  able  to  stop  the  march  of 
events  than  the  little  boy  in  the  gallery 
who  hisses  the  villain.  If  we  mothers 
have  helped  at  all,  it  is  what  we  are, 
and  not  what  we  have  taught,  that  has 
counted.  Yet,  though  we  older  people 
know  there  is  a  gulf  of  time  between 
our  children  and  us  that  may  not  be 
bridged,  we  can't  help  trying  to  bridge 
it. 

If  you  are  in  the  thick  of  the  play  of 
life,  look  around  you  and  you  will  see 
the  gray-headed  spectators  who  have 
themselves  stepped  off  the  stage.  They 
are  the  mothers  and  fathers  of  the 
players,  and  each  one  of  them  is  mur 
muring  advice  or  encouragement  to 
some  dear  child  who  never  stops  to 
listen.  Some  cry  as  they  look  on,  and 

some  laugh,  and  some  sit  proud  and 

234 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


complacent,  and  in  her  heart  each  one 
of  them  knows  that  the  words  she  re 
peats  so  often  are  not  heard.  But  they 
keep  on,  for  deeper  than  the  knowledge 
of  their  own  uselessness  is  the  feeling 
of  responsibility.  You  must  bear  the 
sins  of  your  children  until  you  die,  just 
as  you  have  your  silent  part  in  their 
successes.  You  put  them  in  the  world 
and  you  feel  that  you  must  answer  to 
yourself  for  what  they  are. 

Though  each  generation  must  work 
out  its  own  salvation,  we  mothers  can't 
reconcile  ourselves  to  this  knowledge. 
To  our  last  days  many  of  us  go  on 
persisting  in  the  belief  that  we  could 
help  our  grown-up  children  if  they 
would  only  stop  long  enough  to  listen. 

In  spite  of  myself,  I  believe  this.   I 

can't  help  it,  and  I  like  to  think  that 
235 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


they  listen  more  than  either  of  us 
knows,  and  that  because  they  love  me 
so  dearly,  they  hear,  after  all,  the 
things  I  don't  speak  out  loud.  So  at 
the  end  of  life  I  can  only  say  to  my 
self  what  I  wanted  to  say  to  Marga 
ret:  Each  one  of  us  can  help  her  chil 
dren,  she  her  small  ones  and  I  my  big 
ones,  only  by  loving  them  dearly  and 
trying  humbly  to  understand;  for  I  be 
lieve  that  only  in  this  way  can  one 
generation  come  near  to  the  other. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

LENGTHENING   SHADOWS 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  us  older  people 
as  spectators  at  the  play  of  life,  speak 
ing  words  of  encouragement  which 
were  not  heard ;  and  if  we  speak  words 
that  are  not  heard,  so  are  our  ears  al 
most  always  on  the  alert  to  catch  the 
inner  meaning  of  our  children's  lives, 
to  enter  in  and  understand  all  the  de 
tails  that  are  kept  from  us. 

I  have  a  son  whom  I  have  seen  but 
few  times  in  many  years;  he  lives  in  a 
distant  country  and  can  seldom  come 
home.  I  have  pictures  of  the  house  in 
which  he  lives.  Often  his  face  shines 
out  to  me  familiarly  from  a  strange 

group  of  people,  none  of  whose  faces  I 
237 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


know.  Often  it  will  be  a  little  snap 
shot,  and  from  the  looks  and  gestures 
arrested  in  the  photograph,  I  will  see 
that  they  are  friends  of  his.  Once  in  a 
while  word  comes  that  "  this  is  So-and- 
So,  you  know,"  or  that  "  the  lady  be 
side  me  is  Miss  This  or  Miss  That," 
—  nothing  more.  I  am  familiar  with  all 
the  outer  surfaces  of  his  life,  as  though 
I  had  lived  out  there  with  him.  Every 
morning  and  evening  when  I  pray  for 
my  children  I  go,  it  seems  to  me,  al 
most  bodily  out  toward  him  in  that 
inner  communion  that  we  must  feel 
when  we  pray  intensely  for  those  whom 
we  love.  In  all  the  years  of  our  sepa 
ration  no  woman  has  had  a  more  faith 
ful  child.  Week  after  week  his  letters 
come  —  full  letters,  too ;  I  follow  him  in 

his  small  journeys,  in  his  comings  and 

238 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


goings.  I  hear  the  old  man  and  wife 
talk,  that  have  done  for  him  for  so 
long,  and  to  whose  quaint  picturesque- 
ness  he  never  becomes  accustomed  be 
yond  the  point  of  appreciation.  I  know 
his  tastes  and  his  pleasures  and  his 
recreations.  I  know  that  materially  he 
is  doing  well,  but  of  his  inner  life,  of 
his  defeats,  of  his  triumphs,  of  his  tra 
vail  in  the  stuff  of  his  own  character, 
I  know  nothing  except  what  any  one 
might  know,  —  that  he  is  a  good  fel 
low,  sweet-tempered,  as  he  always  was, 
and  that  he  has  a  certain  touch  of  ar 
rogance,  of  kind-hearted  authority  in 
his  air  that  is  not  unlike  Dudley's. 
Any  one  might  know  this  who  saw  his 
picture  or  who  heard  him  spoken  of, 
But  he  might  be  going  through  the 

crisis  of  his  life  even,  with  his  spirit 
239 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


in  deep  distress,  and  I  am  sure  he 
would  sit  down,  from  force  of  habit, 
and  write  me  one  of  his  chatty  and  en 
tertaining  letters  that  make  up  a  part 
of  my  life.  If  he  is  ill,  you  may  be  sure 
I  hear  nothing  of  it  until  he  is  better. 
Since  he  cannot  be  with  me  in  body 
it  should  be  enough  for  me,  I  suppose, 
that  he  is  in  spirit  with  me  enough  so 
that  he  turns  to  me  and  gives  me  so 
much  of  his  time.  Yet  it  is  not  enough ; 
it  leaves  me  hungry.  I  never  read  one 
of  his  kind  and  charming  letters  without 
wondering:  "Is  all  well  with  you,  my 
son?  Is  life  kind  to  you?  Are  your  days 
lonely  ?  Does  the  lack  of  wife  and  chil 
dren  press  heavily  upon  you,  or  is  the 
crust  of  selfishness  settling  over  you  so 
that  you  would  not  sell  your  small  free 
dom  of  personal  habits  for  the  great 
240 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


gift  of  love  which  wife  and  children 
would  give  you?  Is  the  blight  of  middle 
age  creeping  upon  you,  swallowing  up 
the  generosities  of  your  youth  that  I 
knew  so  well  ?  Or  is  your  heart  hungry 
for  those  children  that  you  have  never 
had,  and  is  there  some  face  dear  to  you 
beyond  all  others,  so  for  want  of  it  you 
must  lead  your  life  lonely  as  you  do 
now  ?  "  These  questions  have  never  been 
answered  for  me,  nor  will  they  be  ever. 
Yet  sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that  I 
know  as  much  of  him  as  I  do  about  those 
two  children  who  have  strayed  familiarly 
through  these  desultory  pages.  They, 
too,  are  as  careful  to  turn  to  me  the 
smiling  side  of  their  lives  as  my  son  so 
far  away  from  me. 

It  is  perhaps  for  this  that  I  feel  nearer 

to  my  son  Henry  than  to  any  of  my 
241 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


children.  He  writes  me  seldom  and  then 
only  brief  communications.  My  know 
ledge  of  his  life  and  comings  and  goings 
is  through  my  daughter-in-law,  but  in 
the  nature  of  his  business  he  makes  me 
brief  and  flying  visits ;  he  descends  upon 
us  at  odd  moments,  which  disturbs  Mar 
garet  and  Dudley.  They  try  and  try  to 
make  him  telegraph  me  or  write  when 
he  is  coming.  They  think  his  unexpected 
visits  disturb  me;  I  suppose  they  get 
this  from  my  trembling  eagerness  at  the 
times  when  I  am  surprised  into  say 
ing:  "I  think  Henry  is  coming  to 
night." 

And  very  often  he  comes  when  I  think 
he  is,  and  then  again  I  am  wrong,  though 
I  am  superstitious  enough  to  believe 
that  he  has  thought  of  coming  and  then 

changed  his  mind  when  this  strong  f  eel- 
242 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ing  of  his  nearness  sweeps  over  me.  And 
when  he  comes  I  see  him  as  he  is.  If  he 
has  made  a  good  business  deal  or  if 
business  worries  him,  he  says  so,  while 
Dudley  and  Margaret  hover  around  like 
two  anxious  parents,  trying  to  play  Prov 
idence.  If  they  know  he  is  coming,  they 
meet  him  first  with  warnings  and  head- 
shakings,  coaching  him  what  to  tell  me 
and  what  not  to  tell  me ;  and  for  a  time  he 
tries  to  be  good,  but  before  he  goes,  he 
flings  out  to  me  what  is  worrying  or 
troubling  him.  To  him  I  speak  my  mind 
more  than  to  any  one,  and  preach  to  him 
the  self-control  that  he  needs.  He  comes 
to  me  as  he  has  always  come,  for  a  cer 
tain  sort  of  strength.  I  give  him  balance 
and  smooth  him  out.  I  am  to  him  what 
I  am  not  to  any  of  my  other  children, — 

the  mother  of  younger  years ;  the  mother 
243 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


to  whom  to  turn  for  advice  and  strength, 
and  I  leap  out  to  meet  it. 

My  other  children  —  those  who  see 
me  from  day  to  day  — tell  me  that  his 
visits  upset  me,  and  so  they  do.  I  have 
been  ill  and  depressed  sometimes  for 
two  or  three  days  when  I  have  not  been 
able  to  get  him,  or  when  his  worry  has 
been  a  difficult  one,  as  I  always  was  ; 
as  I  was  when  they  were  ill ;  as  I  was 
through  the  difficult  phases  in  the  boys' 
developments. 

Tranquillity  and  peace  perhaps  pro 
long  life,  and  yet  —  who  knows  ? 
There  seems  to  be  before  us  the  ques 
tion  as  to  whether  we  shall  wear  out 
or  rust  out,  and  most  of  us  are  praying 
to  fate  that  we  may  be  allowed  to  wear 
out.  Yet  who  can  judge  ?  I  know  that 

my  children's  silence,  at  which  I  often 
244 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


chafe,  is  not  best  for  me,  but  perhaps 
it  is  best  for  them,  since  I  cannot  help 
them,  since  my  anxiety  only  heightens 
theirs.  When  I  see  them  cloaking  their 
troubles  with  smiles  ;  when  I  feel  the 
atmosphere  surcharged  with  anxiety, 
and  see  the  cloud  lift  again,  I  often 
think  it  is  perhaps  self-preservation 
that  makes  them  do  what  they  call 
"  spare  me  "  ;  that  to  watch  me  troubled 
and  broken  with  anxiety  about  their 
worries  would  be  for  them  a  double 
strain. 

I  know  when  Betty  was  ill  that  my 
trouble  —  though  I  was  tranquil  and 
though  I  spoke  heartening  words  — 
was  an  added  burden  to  Margaret.  I 
know  that  for  her  there  were  two  sick 
people  in  the  house  ;  that  I  was  one, 

ill  and  suffering  spirit  for  the  sick  body 
245 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


of  her  child.  And  while  it  seems  to  me 
that  silence  is  perhaps  the  hardest  of 
all  to  bear,  the  peace  it  brings  is  good 
for  all  of  us. 

I  have  said  that  we  should  decide 
whether  we  should  rust  out  or  wear 
out,  but  perhaps  that  was  decided  for 
us  in  our  youth  and  in  our  middle  age, 
for  we  are  continually  deciding  all  our 
life  long  what  kind  of  old  people  we  are 
to  be.  Every  moment  of  our  lives  we  are 
preparing  for  age  ;  carving  out  the 
faces  that  we  are  to  wear  ;  moulding 
and  modeling  and  casting  our  characters 
for  good  or  for  bad  ;  deciding  if  those 
last  years  —  those  dependent  years,  so 
full  of  heartbreak,  so  full  of  the  giving- 
up  of  those  things  which  make  life  life — 
shall  be  bearable  to  those  closest  to  us. 

Some  years  ago  I  began  observing 
246 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


the  various  types  of  age  about  me,  and 
it  appeared  to  me  in  many  unlovely 
guises.  Often  the  women  whom  life 
had  treated  the  most  gently  turned 
toward  life  unlovely  faces,  —  masks  of 
discontent.  I  ask  myself,  Is  life  so  sad 
that  on  the  faces  of  age  one  should  so 
often  see  such  deep  prints  of  ineradicable 
grief,  or  is  it  the  habit  of  discontent, 
year  by  year,  planting  a  wrinkle  here 
and  drawing  down  the  mouth  there  ? 

I,  who  am  as  yet  only  what  people 
call  elderly,  look  sometimes  with  a 
certain  fright  at  the  faces  which  I  see 
that  are  old.  I  see  upon  the  street  old 
men  whose  faces  are  carven  as  though 
in  granite  ;  the  hardness  of  their  own 
hard  hearts  is  there  in  every  line.  Others 
I  see  yet  more  terrible,  —  loose- 
mouthed  and  vacant-eyed,  speaking  of 
247 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


a  life  of  indulgence  of  the  body.  They 
have  no  thoughts  to  carry  with  them  to 
the  grave  ;  no  light  from  the  hills  makes 
them  lift  up  their  eyes  ;  they  have  for 
gotten  the  hills  if  ever  they  knew  them. 
And  the  faces  of  the  old  women,  —  how 
vacant  are  so  many  of  them  ;  how  dis 
contented!  What  furrowed  brows, 
penned  with  sorrow  as  though  their 
thoughts  had  become  steeped  with  sad 
ness  until  it  had  become  moulded  on 
every  line  of  the  face  without.  "What 
bitterness  again  !  And  all  these  things 
bespeak  a  feebleness  of  the  spirit. 
Day  by  day,  as  they  walk  on  the  road 
that  leads  to  age,  they  forge  out  of 
life  their  own  masters  and  the  doom  of 
those  about  them  as  well.  There  is 
something  in  character  that  seems  to 
survive  even  the  mind.  I  often  call  to 
248 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


mind  the  story  of  Emerson,  who,  when 
his  mind  failed  and  he  could  n't  think 
of  words  and  what  he  wanted  to  say, 
waited  with  a  sublime  patience,  — some 
times  waited  for  the  word  that  would  n't 
come.  His  own  serenity  outlived  the 
worn-out  tool  that  had  used  it  for  such 
high  purposes. 

I  remember  from  the  days  of  my 
early  middle  life  an  old  woman  who 
had  become  completely  childish  and 
rambled  around  the  town  in  which  she 
lived,  a  harmless  and  fantastic  figure. 
Deafness  was  added  to  her  other  in 
firmities.  And  yet,  as  she  went  along 
the  streets  talking  to  herself,  one 
caught  snatches  of  a  mind  imperish- 
ably  enwrapped  in  the  kind  things  of 
life. 

"What  a  beautiful  child !  "  one  would 
249 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


hear  her  remark.  "Oh,  the  lovely 
child!  .  .  .  What  a  lovely  day !  " 

This  poor  distraught  and  maimed 
spirit  saw  beauty  everywhere.  She 
would  stop  a  stranger  on  the  street  to 
know  if  she  knew  the  Mrs.  Grant  with 
whom  she  lived.  "Such  a  beautiful 
woman  !  So  good,  so  good ! " 

Of  all  the  lessons  that  come  to  me 
out  of  my  past,  the  lesson  of  this  crea 
ture,  never  a  stalwart  spirit,  but,  like 
her  friend,  "so  good,"  returns  to  me 
the  oftenest.  She  had  had  a  heart  that 
had  been  a  fountain  of  love  to  all  that 
came  near  her;  though  she  had  never 
been  a  woman  of  much  brains  or  wisdom, 
yet  her  indestructible  sweetness  sur 
vived  her,  and  this,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
the  lesson  that  age  should  bring  to 

youth  continually. 

250 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


"  Choose,"  says  Age,  "  this  face  so 
beneficent,  so  sweet,  so  kind,  or  this 
other,  written  over  and  over  with  the 
small,  mean  vices  of  uncharitableness 
and  littleness." 

This  much  is  to  a  certain  degree  in 
our  hands,  but  what  is  not  in  our  hands 
is  the  final  end,  the  terrible  and  inevi 
table  breaking-up  of  the  powers  of  the 
body;  the  end  that  no  one  can  tell  if  it 
shall  come  swiftly  and  mercifully  or 
with  torment  for  those  one  loves  and 
for  one's  self.  One  can  only  hope  here ; 
one  cannot  know.  And  I  suppose  it  is 
because  of  this  menace  that  glides  be 
fore  us  more  and  more  closely,  if  we 
stop  to  think,  that  so  many  older  men 
and  women  have  such  impatience  at 
having  clipped  from  them  one  or  any 

of  the  little  things  that  still  make  life 
251 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


the  place  it  was.  Every  outer  sign  of 
age  reminds  us  of  this;  every  new 
feebleness  of  the  body  brings  before  us 
vividly  the  goal  to  which  we  are  tend 
ing,  —  not  the  goal  of  death,  but  per 
haps  the  goal  of  the  last  years  of  an 
enfeebled  and  broken  and  useless  life. 
I  think  it  is  this  shadow  that  chills  the 
hearts  of  those  of  us  who  have  brave 
spirits  more  than  the  thought  of  death. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

GROWING    OLD    GRACEFULLY 

I  REMEMBER  very  well  indeed  when  I 
began  to  hate  to  look  at  myself  in  the 
glass.  That  is  the  turning-point,  —  I 
hated  to  look  at  myself.  The  women 
who  look  in  the  glass  oftenest  are  not 
the  vainest  ones.  Where  a  woman  looks 
in  the  glass  out  of  vanity  once,  she 
looks  in  the  glass  twenty  times  as  a 
matter  of  criticism,  —  looks  to  see  if 
her  hat  is  on  straight,  looks  to  see  if 
her  belt  is  doing  its  duty,  looks  to  see 
if  her  skirt  hangs  well. 

There  came  a  time  in  my  life  when, 
while  I  was  no  longer  young,  I  had  a 
wholesome  middle-aged  look.  I  was  no 
253 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 


better  looking  and  no  worse  than  my 
neighbors,  and  my  children  encouraged 
vanity  in  me,  as  one's  dear  children  very 
often  will,  by  saying  the  sweet  and  fa 
miliar  words  :  "How  dear  you  look  to 
day,  mother !  I  love  to  see  mother  in 
that  dress  ";  or,  admonishing  me  ;"  Mo 
ther,  you  really  must  have  a  new  hat. 
Look  at  mother's  hat !  " 

The  moment  comes  to  every  woman 
when,  instead  of  flushing  under  the  ap 
proval  of  some  masculine  creature,  — 
either  sweetheart  or  husband,  according 
to  her  state  of  life,  she  sees  herself  mir 
rored  in  the  eyes  of  her  grown-up 
children.  You  may  be  sure  that  these 
little  children  of  yours,  that  you  see 
now  growing  up  around  you,  will  in  time 
pay  you  more  tribute  and  also  give  you 

more  frank  criticism  than  any  one  you 
254 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


have  ever  known,  devoted  husband  or 
sweetheart  as  he  may  have  been. 

I  wear  certain  laces  and  a  certain 
brooch  because  my  son  Dudley  cares 
for  them,  certain  colors  because  of  my 
daughter  Margaret,  and  I  am  contin 
ually  in  a  state  of  border  warfare  with 
them  both  for  trying  to  make  me  buy 
new  things  which  I  do  not  need  and 
that  are  clear  beyond  my  pocketbook. 
And  my  case  is  the  same  as  that  of 
many  an  elderly  woman  of  my  acquain 
tance  ;  we  have  to  fairly  fight  with  our 
children  not  to  put  every  penny  we 
possess  upon  our  backs.  No  young  lady 
just  coming  out  could  hear  the  words 
from  loving  relatives  that  she  needs  a 
new  dress  so  often  as  I  do. 

I  will  come  back  to  what  I  was  say 
ing,  —  there  was  a  time  in  my  life  when 
255 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


because  of  the  flattery  of  those  I  loved 
—  and  there  is  no  flattery  more  far- 
reaching  than  that  —  I  surveyed  my 
middle-aged  reflection  in  the  glass  with 
peace  of  heart.  One  of  my  daughters 
would  inform  me  that  she  thought  I  was 
the  prettiest  mother  in  the  world ;  the 
blessed  part  of  it  is,  I  think  they  really 
believed  this  was  true.  Then  the  day 
came  when  I  realized  that  my  face  was 
old.  I  had  been  out  of  health,  nothing 
very  serious  or  alarming,  but  I  had  lost 
flesh  and  had  n't  been  out  of  doors  much, 
and  one  day  as  I  turned  to  meet  my  re 
flection  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  thousand 
wrinkles  started  out  at  me,  that  there 
were  lines  about  my  eyes,  that  my  whole 
face  was  shrunken. 

People  speak  of  the  terrible  moment 

it  is  in  a  woman's  life  when  she  finds 
256 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


her  first  wrinkle.  I  don't  believe  most 
normal  women  find  the  first  wrinkle  at 
all.  Very  few  of  us  are  professional 
beauties  ;  the  happiness  of  very  few  of 
us  consists  in  our  staying  in  our  first 
flush  of  looks  forever.  The  average, 
normal,  comfortable  woman  is  too  busy 
looking  after  her  babies  and  her  home 
about  the  time  the  first  wrinkle  puts  in 
an  appearance  to  even  notice  it,  and, 
even  if  she  does,  to  be  disturbed,  be 
cause  all  her  contemporaries  are  no 
better  off  than  she.  The  discovery  of 
age  is  a  different  thing.  I  don't  know 
if  all  women  realize  from  one  day  to 
another  as  I  do  this  creeping  on  of  the 
hands  of  Time,  but  I  think  there  must 
come  a  day  of  definite  awakening.  I 
have  seen  women  stricken  down  with 

some  illness  and  go  to  bed  plump  and 
257 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


middle-aged,  and  emerge,  a  few  weeks 
afterwards,  from  the  sick-room,  frosted 
with  age.  I  have  seen  sorrow  rob  women 
of  the  Indian  summer  of  youth  still 
more  often.  Generally  it  comes  upon 
them  stealthily  like  a  thief  in  the  night ; 
you  don't  know  how  long  it  has  been 
coming  on,  but  little  by  little  you  find 
yourself  "  Old  Mrs.  So-and-So  "  instead 
of  "Mrs.  So-and-So." 

The  first  wrinkle  when  one  has  chil 
dren  and  a  loving  husband  means  no 
thing  at  all,  but  this  look  of  age — it  is  the 
first  cold  warning  of  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow,  it  is  a  sign  that  one  is  actually 
on  the  road  downhill,  that  the  best  days 
of  life  are  over,  that  the  activities  that 
have  made  life  worth  living,  from  now 
on  must  slip  more  and  more  from  one's 

fingers.  My  heart  may  feel  as  young  as 

258 


AN   ELDERLY  WOMAN 


ever,  but  what  good  is  that  if  my  knees 
are  rusty  and  going  up  and  down  stairs 
begins  to  be  a  burden,  and  I  find  myself 
tired  after  a  little  walk,  and  I  know  that 
never  again  can  I  go  back,  that  not  one 
of  these  wrinkles  can  vanish  with  return 
ing  health,  that  activities  once  given  up 
have  gone  from  us  then  forever. 

Small  wonder  then  that  I  don't  like 
to  look  at  my  face,  though  it  is  still 
sweet  in  the  eyes  of  my  children.  I  don't 
like,  I  frankly  confess,  to  be  reminded 
of  all  that  the  wrinkles  and  gray  hair 
imply.  There  is  no  vanity  in  this:  I 
never  was  enough  of  a  beauty  to  be  vain 
about  my  looks,  but  was  always  glad 
that  I  could  be,  as  my  unflattering  aunts 
used  to  say  when  I  was  a  little  girl, 
"  well  enough,"  and  that  "  I  would  pass 
in  a  crowd."  I  think,  indeed,  I  am  better 
259 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


looking  as  an  older  woman  than  as  a 
younger  one.  My  features  are  of  the 
kind  that  endure,  my  hair  has  taken  a 
not  unpleasing  shade  of  gray,  and  yet 
I  turn  from  this  reflection  of  a  not  ill- 
looking  elderly  woman,  not  because  I 
mind  being  older,  but  because  now  and 
then  it  comes  quickly  to  me  to  what  age 
and  to  what  goal  I  am  so  fast  approach 
ing.  The  spacious  and  sunny  hours,  oc 
cupations  to  my  liking,  and  my  dear 
children  at  hand  to  smooth  the  road  for 
me,  make  life  a  pleasant  place,  —  so  I 
turn  my  face  away. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  visiting  some 
neighbors  of  ours  an  elderly  relative. 
Her  hair  had  not  turned  gray,  but  had 
kept  a  rather  nondescript  fluffy  blond. 
She  had  also  retained  what  is  called 

"  the  figure  of  a  girl."  I  expect  that  in 
260 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


reality  she  was  a  fairly  angular  woman 
under  her  successful  millinery ;  anyway 
she  lacked  the  comfortable  roundness 
that  comes  to  most  women  who  do  not 
grow  thin  with  advancing  years,  and 
for  my  part  I  had  rather  resemble  a 
comfortable  armchair  than  a  little  spid 
ery  bent-wood  affair  that  looks  as  if 
it  would  blow  away  in  a  good  strong 
wind.  This  woman,  however,  at  a  little 
distance,  gave  a  sad  little  illusion  of 
youth.  As  one  saw  her  going  down  the 
street,  for  instance,  one  would  have 
thought    her   quite   a  young   person; 
across  the  room  one  would  have  given 
her  forty-five,  —  forty-five  dressed  with 
a   certain  discreet   youthf ulness ;   and 
close  at  hand  she  looked  very  young 
for  her  age,  very  well  preserved.  This 
caused  a  good  deal  of  comment. 
261 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


"Well,"  said  Margaret,  "I'm  glad 
you  don't  look  like  that,  mother !  I  think 
it  is  absurd  for  a  woman  of  her  age  with 
middle-aged  daughters  to  dress  the  way 
she  does." 

"Yes,"  returned  one  of  our  neigh 
bors,  "  and  do  you  notice  her  complex 
ion?  It  seems  to  me,"  went  on  this 
young  mentor  of  the  aged,  "that  women 
don't  know  how  to  grow  old  gracefully 
the  way  they  used  to." 

I  said  nothing,  but  my  heart  went  out 
to  this  poor  lady  who  was  struggling 
so  valiantly  to  shove  back  the  hands  of 
the  clock;  and  I  would  like  to  make 
here  a  little  plea  to  you  younger  people. 
I  know  it  is  considered  becoming  to  do 
what  is  called  "  grow  old  gracefully  "; 
that  is,  to  face  the  world  with  all  your 

wrinkles,  to  have  the  courage  of  your 
262 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


gray  hairs,  to  lay  aside  your  favorite 
gay  colors  and  put  on  the  dark  colors 
in  which  people  are  supposed  most 
suitably  to  mourn  their  dead  youth;  I 
know  that  younger  people  consider  that 
we  should  be  willing  and  eager  even  to 
betray  every  one  of  the  years  we  have 
lived  by  our  actions,  by  our  looks,  by 
our  dress,  and  I  do  not  pretend  that 
this  is  not  the  bravest  part  to  take,  but 
here  and  there  we  find  a  coward  in  this 
world,  and  let  us  not  be  untender.  Who 
knows  what  pressure  has  been  brought 
to  bear?  It  is  silly,  if  you  like,  it  is  lack 
ing  in  intelligence  to  try  to  hide  one's 
age,  but  what  a  tragedy  it  confesses, 
what  a  futile  and  heart-rending  struggle ! 
"When  I  see  women,  as  I  have  in  the 
past,  with  foolish  false  fronts  which 
did  n't  match  their  grizzling  back  hair, 
263 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


when  I  see  youthful  garments  on  old 
shoulders,  I  am  sometimes  filled  with 
impatience  and  think,  "  Oh,  you  silly 
woman!"  But  I  am  still  more  filled 
with  pity  and  say,  "  Poor  woman !  Sad 
woman!  Woman  on  whose  shoulders 
so  heavy  a  burden  has  been  laid  that 
you  cannot  face  the  inevitable ! " 

I  remember  there  lived  in  our  town 
a  maiden  lady  who  kept  her  pretty  looks 
so  that  she  was  like  a  sort  of  thistle 
down  wraith  of  a  girl.  She  lived  alone 
and  on  so  small  a  stipend  that  no  one 
knew  how  she  kept  soul  and  body  to 
gether.  She  was  one  of  those  poor  souls 
who  had  lost  her  lover  on  the  eve  of 
her  marriage  and  f orevermore  mourned 
him. 

When  she  died,  strangers  swarmed 

over  her  house.  At  the  time  of  the  auc- 
264 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


tion  there  had  been  no  one  of  near  enough 
kin  to  take  the  trouble  to  go  over  the 
house  and  put  away  the  little  trivial 
effects  of  the  dead  which  no  casual  eye 
should  ever  see,  and  so  there  was  un 
covered  before  the  gaping  town  row  af 
ter  row  of  empty  bottles  of  complexion 
bleach  slightly  tinged  with  pink;  peo 
ple  laughed  and  gossiped  and  thought 
it  was  very  funny.  There  were  others 
who  frowned,  asserting  that  at  her  time 
of  life  this  woman  should  have  known 
better  than  to  spend  her  few  pennies 
on  such  folly;  which  was  all,  no  doubt, 
very  wise  and  true.  This  poor  lady  kept 
herself  young  only  for  herself.  I  suppose 
she  did  n't  want  the  ghost  of  her  dead 
lover  to  find  a  wrinkled  old  woman  in 
place  of  the  fresh -faced  girl  he  had 
loved. 

265 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


You  may  be  sure  that  almost  all  older 
women  who  refuse  to  grow  old  grace 
fully  reveal  some  tragedy  in  these  mis 
taken  efforts  which  should  cause 
younger  people  to  be  sorry.  After  all, 
it  is  growing  old  gracefully  in  the  spirit 
that  counts,  and  it  seems  to  me  more 
important  as  we  advance  in  years  that 
our  spirits  should  be  sweetened,  and 
that  we  should  be  kinder  in  our  outlook 
upon  life,  and  that  we  should  fight 
against  the  egotism  of  age,  than  that 
we  should  dress  in  a  way  to  proclaim 
our  years. 

Perhaps  my  turning  away  from  my 
looking-glass,  and  all  my  self -con 
sciousness  and  rebellion  at  the  advanc 
ing  traces  of  years,  are  a  greater  sin 
against  the  true  standard  of  growing 
old  gracefully  than  those  who  can  trick 
266 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


themselves  into  a  belief  that  they  look 
young  and  try  naively  to  trick  others. 

When  a  young  woman  criticizes  an 
older  for  these  foibles,  I  do  not  think 
she  is  preparing  herself  in  her  heart  to 
grow  old  gracefully,  and  yet  all  of  us 
are  preparing  every  day  for  what  sort 
of  old  age  we  are  going  to  pass.  The 
question  of  growing  old  as  one  should 
is  a  very  deep  one.  It  is  n't  a  matter  of 
clothes;  it  is  as  deep  as  life  itself. 

When  I  was  young  I  can  remember 
certain  older  people  whose  passing 
through  a  room  seemed  to  me  like  a 
benediction.  There  was  one  elderly 
relative  of  mine  —  a  woman  who  had 
never  married  —  with  whom  I  used  to 
pass  afternoons.  I  don't  think  that  I 
ever  told  her  one  of  my  troubles,  great 
or  small,  but  her  very  presence  was  so 
267 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


sweet,  so  gallant,  so  up-standing,  and, 
withal,  humorous,  —  so  like  a  perpetual 
sermon  to  me,  —  that  I  used  to  come 
from  her  feeling  as  though  I  had  drunk 
of  the  spring  of  life ;  and  yet  her  life 
had  been  difficult.  Eeport  said  she  had 
turned  her  face  from  the  marriage 
she  desired  to  take  care  of  an  exacting 
mother;  she  had  brought  up  a  brood  of 
younger  brothers  and  sisters,  and  al 
ways  she  had  fought  against  poverty, 
and,  unflinching,  faced  loneliness  as 
the  years  advanced.  She,  if  you  like, 
had  grown  old  gracefully,  and  yet,  had 
she  insisted  on  dressing  in  scarlet  and 
painting  her  cheeks  to  match  her 
gown,  she  would  have  grown  old  no 
less  gracefully,  it  seems  to  me. 

I  remember  another  time,  when  I  was 
hurrying  home  to  the  bedside  of  a  sick 
268 


AN  ELDERLY  WOMAN 


child,  that  my  companion  in  the  car 
was  an  old  man,  and  as  we  traveled  to 
gether  many  hours,  he  told  me  the 
story  of  his  life.  To  hear  him  speak  of 
his  wife,  who  had  died  some  years  be 
fore,  was  a  thing  that  made  one  be 
lieve  in  mankind;  to  hear  him  speak  in 
a  simple,  refreshing  way  of  his  faith 
would  make  one,  doubting,  believe  in 
God.  He  himself  was  fighting  for  the 
life  of  a  son  who  had  been  stricken 
with  consumption,  but  was  winning  in 
the  fight.  His  brave  talk  and  his  loving 
attitude  of  mind  poured  I  know  not 
what  strength  into  my  own  faltering 
spirit,  and  enabled  me  to  go  to  the 
nursing  that  was  before  me  with  an 
unflinching  heart,  though  he  knew 
nothing  of  my  trouble. 

As  I   grow  older,  I  see   examples 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


here  and  there  of  lovely  and  inspir 
ing  old  age,  and  I  pray  that  I  may 
grow  old  gracefully  in  some  image 
like  that. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO—*      202  Main  Library 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

- 
a     .,  -vargas  may  be  made  4  days  prior 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


KLU  UK  AUU      0 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELE> 
FORM  NO.  DD67  60m,  1/83          BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


Yb  ' 


786713 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


